fundamental or not

[Ankit Gupta]

Is electron a fundamental particle or not somewhere said it is & somewhere it is not ?

[Sensei]

Argument for electron being fundamental is such that it's not decaying to other particles with less energy-mass, as far as we know (unlike f.e. muon- which is decaying to electron and neutrino)

 

Argument for electron not being fundamental is such that it can collide with positron and annihilate producing gamma photons (which also can be absorbed and reemitted at even smaller frequencies, producing even more photons).

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_particle

 

"In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a particle whose substructure is unknown, thus it is not known to be composed of other particles."

[timo]

The electron is generally assumed to be an elementary particle, which I assume is what you mean by "fundamental particle". @Sensei: Interaction with positrons is not an argument against the electron being an elementary particle. It would probably not be counted as one if that was an argument.

[Ankit Gupta]

But I read on the net that some scientists have broken the electron in three different particle 'spinon - which provide it spin ,holon - for charge and orbiton - for its orbit .

[StringJunky]

Ankit Gupta, on 23 Nov 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:Ankit Gupta, on 23 Nov 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:

But I read on the net that some scientists have broken the electron in three different particle 'spinon - which provide it spin ,holon - for charge and orbiton - for its orbit .

 

I found this:

 

http://phys.org/news200828132.html

 

Paper : http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.5431

Edited November 23, 2013 by StringJunky

[swansont]

But I read on the net that some scientists have broken the electron in three different particle 'spinon - which provide it spin ,holon - for charge and orbiton - for its orbit .

 

They did that in some larger interacting structure and saw collective behavior; it was not with bare electrons.

[Ankit Gupta]

Then what should I conclude is it fundamental or not ?

[timo]

Is there any reason to believe that I don't know what I am saying? Is there any reason to assume the reply of other random strangers from the Internet is more reliable than mine?

[swansont]

You are basing your question on an apples-to oranges comparison. Yes, an electron is a fundamental particle. When you have a large number of them, the collective behavior can be different.

[Ankit Gupta]

Is there any reason to believe that I don't know what I am saying? Is there any reason to assume the reply of other random strangers from the Internet is more reliable than mine?

no there is not any specific reason but I just want to clarify it so that if I'll tell it to somebody then it would not be wrong .

[imatfaal]

Further to above explanations

 

AJB blogged about this a year or so ago

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/ajb/?p=1926

[Ankit Gupta]

Now this is more complicated then before to me , please tell me what did experiment tell , what are holon ,spinon ,orbiton , and how are they linked to electron ?

[ajb]

... what are holon ,spinon ,orbiton , and how are they linked to electron ?

Loosley in certain conditions you can think of the electrons properties as being distributed between these three pesudo-particles. You can think of an electron as a bound state of the holon, spinon and orbiton. Amazingly you can have sistuations in which these pesudo-particles are not confined.

 

In this sense we can separate the properies of the electron.

 

Note this is collective behaviour and we have not actually split any electrons, just distributed their properties amoung pesudo-particles.

[BearOfNH]

Given the h-o-s pseudo-particles are just a way of modeling things, a follow-on question is: can we extend that model to other particles -- elementary or not -- as well? What would a photon be "made of"? Frequency (freqon)? Anything else? (If not, then in some sense a photon is even more fundamental than an electron).

 

Take a holon away from a proton and give it to a nearby neutron and >POOF< you've switched the N and P.

 

I know this sounds crazy and I'm not gonna pursue the notion any further, else I'd have started a new thread. Just an idle thought to kickstart the subconscious before a 4-day weekend.

Edited November 28, 2013 by BearOfNH

[swansont]

Given the h-o-s pseudo-particles are just a way of modeling things, a follow-on question is: can we extend that model to other particles -- elementary or not -- as well? What would a photon be "made of"? Frequency (freqon)? Anything else? (If not, then in some sense a photon is even more fundamental than an electron).

 

Take a holon away from a proton and give it to a nearby neutron and >POOF< you've switched the N and P.

 

I know this sounds crazy and I'm not gonna pursue the notion any further, else I'd have started a new thread. Just an idle thought to kickstart the subconscious before a 4-day weekend.

 

Neutrons and protons exist as single particles. The collective behavior here is seen in collections of many particles (some reasonable fraction of a mole)