Mr Skeptic Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 So, a crazy idea has occurred to me. How can we tell whether a particle-antiparticle pair disappear after annihilating? If their energy is all in the form of potential energy (with respect to its antiparticle), all the energy will be gone after they annihilate. But how could we tell the difference whether the particles disappear of not? The antiparticle would have exactly opposite charge and magnetic moment as the particle and would be in the same place, so it would cancel out its electromagnetic field. Suppose that all throughout space there were a bunch of particle-antiparticle pairs that have "annihilated" and lost all their mass, but the rest of the particle and antiparticle remained. However, an electric field or a changing magnetic field would slightly separate the charges, and it would provide a weightless medium with incredible elasticity. So if there is an ether, this seems like it would be an ideal composition for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted May 29, 2008 Share Posted May 29, 2008 If we consider a particle-antiparticle annihilation experiment, we have the annihilations happening in the middle. We have 2 detectors and tune them to only detect a photon of the rest mass of an electron (or proton) and we set up the system so that we only get positive measurement when both detectors detect a photon, we set the detectors 180degrees from each other, and then move one detector slowly from 180degrees the number of counts drops off amazingly fast to close to 0. So we know that the total rest mass energy is turned into the photons... So what else could there be left behind? What is this "rest" of them? How would the fields affect massless things? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted May 29, 2008 Author Share Posted May 29, 2008 So we know that the total rest mass energy is turned into the photons... So what else could there be left behind? What is this "rest" of them? How would the fields affect massless things? The rest of them would be their electric fields and magnetic moments ... which would be canceled. But if there were an external electric field, it would pull them slightly apart, forming a dipole. Then it would have some energy, and some mass (potential energy due to the slight separation of charges). So I'd say it would be detectable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KALSTER Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 Then it would have some energy, and some massBut a massless particle is supposed to travel at C, no? So how could the products (photons) stay local? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 But a massless particle is supposed to travel at C, no? So how could the products (photons) stay local? It's in fact a requirement of relativity. The rest of them would be their electric fields and magnetic moments ... which would be canceled. But if there were an external electric field, it would pull them slightly apart, forming a dipole. Then it would have some energy, and some mass (potential energy due to the slight separation of charges). So I'd say it would be detectable. This should be trivial to measure and play havoc with experiments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KALSTER Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 It's in fact a requirement of relativity.That they stay local or travel at C? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 That they stay local or travel at C? That they travel at c. I think... I'm quite tired, got up at 7am, and had about 6h of exams today... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KALSTER Posted May 30, 2008 Share Posted May 30, 2008 Ok, cool, thought so. So when the photons leave, nothing would stay behind, so there is nothing to consider. But in a strong electromagnetic field the photons might hit a virtual pair and impart enough momentum to create some more true particle-antiparticle pairs. You could detect that, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted June 1, 2008 Author Share Posted June 1, 2008 This should be trivial to measure and play havoc with experiments! It should be detectable, but it would be hard to separate the two particles completely, as that would require as much energy as to create an electron and a positron. As for the induced dipole, I could calculate the equations if I knew the equation for the attraction between an electron and a positron at extremely close range. Anyhow, the idea is not too different from that of virtual particles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted June 1, 2008 Share Posted June 1, 2008 It's easy to work out, it's just a sum of: Gravitation EM Weak A virtual photon between a nucleus and eletron creates an electron - positron pair, the effect of this can be measured and the pair are in no way distant from each other. So any devices on small scales with E or B fields there should be a measurable effect due to this. Weak obviously being the harder to measure... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graviphoton Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Well, the Dirac Sea, which is supposed to boil particles and antiparticles into existence, within the vacuum, is seriously being considered by physicists as a quantum aether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
granpa Posted April 14, 2009 Share Posted April 14, 2009 Well, the Dirac Sea, which is supposed to boil particles and antiparticles into existence, within the vacuum, is seriously being considered by physicists as a quantum aether. interesting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daecon Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Zero-point energy? Is that an actual theory or was it just something fictional made up for Stargate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
granpa Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 It's real. Only some of the proposed uses are fictional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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