What are virtual particles?
The ancient Greeks stated that nature is made of particles and vacuum. Modern physics added virtual particles - among other things - to distinguish them from the real particles of the ancient Greeks. But what are virtual particles?
The uncertainty relation for time and energy implies that for very short times, particles can appear and disappear again. These short-lived particles are called virtual.
It turns out that electric and magnetic forces can be described by the exchange of virtual photons. Likewise, the nuclear interactions can be described by the exchange of virtual W, Z and gluons. And of course, gravity can be described by the exchange of virtual gravitons. All these are virtual radiation particles, i.e., virtual bosons. They lead to interesting effects. An example is the attraction of electrically neutral metal plates, the so-called Casimir effect.
But also virtual fermions, i.e., virtual matter particles exist. They often arise in pairs. Virtual particle-antiparticle pairs play a role in many effects and high-precision calculations, such as the g-factor calculations of the electron, one of the most precisely known quantities in nature. Virtual matter pairs are lead to interesting effects: they play an important role in black hole radiation.
However, all this only tells us where virtual particles arise, and what effects they have. How can we imagine virtual particles? In science language: how can we model virtual particles? Clearly, virtual particles are something between vacuum and particles. Virtual particles are an aspect of vacuum fluctuations.
Any curious person will open Google Scholar, will search for “models of virtual particles” and will find - nothing. To be completely sure, the person might ask some Absent Intelligence (AI) System and will find - nothing. There is “no” model for virtual particles - with one exception, as we will see.
Why this lack of models and visualizations? Such a model must visualize vacuum, its fluctuations, and particles. All with one description. Those researchers who visualize vacuum fluctuations with 3d waves in some continuous substrate, as researchers in general relativity often do, are unable to model particles. Those researchers who visualize particles as little spheres, or those that imagine particles to be knots, are unable to visualize vacuum fluctuations.
The challenge gets even harder if we think about antiparticles. Spheres do not provide a model for antiparticles. Neither do fluctuations of a continuous vacuum. (Knots do, by the way: mirror knots.) These are, in simple terms, the challenges provided by virtual particles. But there is a solution.
The strand tangle model provides a model for virtual particles. Strands describe the vacuum as a fluctuating aggregate of unobservable strands of Planck radius that reach the cosmological horizon. Real particles are rational 3d tangles of strands, 3d braids, for which the strands also reach the cosmological horizon. As a consequence, virtual particles are temporary deformations of vacuum strands that tangle and untangle again after a short time.
This allows describing all processes involving virtual particles.
The figures show that only strands reproduce quantum field theory.
But the fascination of the strand tangle model goes deeper. Because only strand tangles model the three gauge interactions (and no other ones) plus gravity, and because only strands model the observed elementary particles (and no other ones) we get the result that only strands model and visualize virtual particles (and antiparticles).
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A comment should be added, starting with some background.
You can read thousands of proposals for extensions to present particle physics. But if you ask many authors, many will readily tell you that their work cannot be fully correct. These authors are honest researchers.
You will also read about well-known researchers stating that the standard model of elementary particle physics is ugly or that quantum theory is wrong. But these statements have no basis in experiments. They are wishful thinking.
Some authors will even tell you that their approach is “the only game in town.” Strands show that they are wrong. In fact, strands explain the origin of the observed interactions, of the observed elementary particles, and of the observed fundamental constants - while eliminating all other options. No other published approach achieves this. Therefore, at present, strands are the only game in town.
In contrast to all other approaches published so far, strands show that the standard model with massive neutrinos and quantum theory are correct, complete, simple, and beautiful. In particular, strands imply that nobody will every find a deviation from presently known particle physics. (And this is indeed the case since over 50 years.) Strands thus make a strong claim: strands are correct and complete.
Why is the strand tangle model simple and beautiful? Because it derives all results from a single fundamental principle. Strands are the tiniest theory possible.
Every observation and every experiment every made confirm and agree with the fundamental principle. To check this agreement, all publications about the strand model have a title starting with “Testing …”.
Or to put it in simple words: the strand tangle model is not some fantasy or one of many options for a unified theory of nature. Instead, strands claim to be the correct unified description of motion, and that there is no possible inequivalent alternative.
And, like for every serious description of nature, everybody can check the claim. Everybody can falsify it. Enjoy doing so.
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