Fun with tachyons

I have written a number of posts on other sites that have a LENR theme. I am providing them here for your entertainment and contemplation as follows:

Recently, I have become fascinated by the concept of the tachyon. It is a particle with negative mass. This fasciation has been stoked by the recent release to the LENR community of a SEM micrograph of a sample of fuel that is being used in a LENR reactor. Here is one of those pictures:

The tracks that the LENR active particle is taking correspond to the tracks that are predicted to come from a tachyon monopole. The sort of track has been seen many times in the photoemission studies of LENR ash samples. It is uncertain what that LENR active agent is but the indications are good that the LENR active particle is a metallic hydrogen nanoparticle that has been formed by a LENR fuel preparation process.

My interpretation of this picture is as follows:

The fuel is the microparticles of metal that the tape is supporting. There is an unseen active LENR reaction agent that is too small to see in the micrographs. I believe that this agent is metallic hydrogen since only hydrogen is present with the a unspecified transition metal. But these agents might be metallic hydrogen nanoparticles. The crystalline like fractal patterns seen on the tape surface and on the metal micro-particles are the LENR reaction trails produced by the metallic hydrogen as it converts matter into energy via a transmutation of elements process.

The reactor builder states that:

Quote

“The background is carbon adhesive tape that is commonly used for SEM.
In the Full BSD electron topology one can see elemental composition of the sample. Higher atomic number, the brighter the color is.
Yes, the shiny particles are metal hydrides.

The tracks are made of a various elements. The starting element is usually of lower atomic number, while at the end it is higher.”

Very little heat is produced by the LENR reaction because the carbon tape is not destroyed by the reaction. The energy from the reaction is stored in the structure of the metallic hydrogen as it moves along the surface of the tape and the metal.

The LENR reaction is minimal at this quiescent stage but it can continue for weeks at this low level. During this stage, the metallic hydrogen is self-sustaining. When the fuel is activated by a high potential EMF field the LENR reaction produced by the metallic hydrogen increases exponentially. At his stage, the heat output is generated through an enhanced LENR reaction. A positive feedback mode is established as heat production increases the heat output. This is self-sustain mode.

The metallic hydrogen when not activated produces a low intensity magnetic field that catalyzes the conversion of matter into energy. When the metallic hydrogen is activated, its magnetic potential increases greatly and the energy produced is substantial.

When the activation signal is removed, the metallic hydrogen returns to low level activity and has a long shelf life. High intensity LENR heat production can begin when the activation signal is reapplied.

According to one of the LENR reactor patents, the activation signal is an electrostatic field between 50 and 100 kilovolts.

Metallic hydrogen is produced by high pressure processes such as formation in nano-pits and cracks as per high palladium loading or cavitation bubble formation as metallic water. But once formed, the metallic hydrogen/water is self-sustaining and act like free ranging particles.

The herringbone track pattern as seen in this micrograph is predicted to appear as a tachyon interaction with a substrate. The negative mass seen might be produced by the activation field as the polariton cover in the spin wave that enshrouds the metallic hydrogen microparticle is constantly replenished and activated with a non- Hermitian open system’s based Parity/time state change as the polariton cover that surrounds the metallic hydrogen constantly decays and is replaced.

Examples for tachyonic fields are all cases of spontaneous symmetry breaking. In condensed matter physics a notable example is ferromagnetism; in particle physics the best known example is the Higgs mechanism in the standard model.

Inspired by this non-Hermitian P/T state change insight that might be in play with metallic hydrogen, in like manner, the Higgs boson is also a tachyon and its negative mass might be a manifestation of a continual state change that occurs in virtual particle creation and decay.

Furthermore, as described by the description of the tachyon monopole in string theory, the generation of mesons is predicted to occur through hadronization. This kaon production is seen in the experiments of Leif Holmlid. There is a chance that the tachyon is dual with metallic hydrogen.

Why is the tachyon a critical keystone in particle theory?

It is useful to compare and contrast string theories with conventional particle theories. Our goal should be to compare the predictions that have been formulated by string theory against the particles that are observed in the real world.

What is the difference between a string theory and a conventional particle theory? Both kinds of theories describe particles and their interactions, but in the latter case the particles are the fundamental entities, whereas in the former case they are made of something more fundamental (the string).

When constructing a conventional particle theory, the theorist is more or less free to decide what types of particles to include and what properties to endow them with, such as what their masses are, whether they are bosons or fermions, and how they interact with each other.

These particle descriptions form the basis for theories that include quantum electrodynamics and the Standard Model.

These particle descriptions are examples of realistic theories, meaning that they describe the real world. But there are countless other theories one can construct that are equally mathematically consistent (and also satisfy basic physical requirements like quantum mechanics and special relativity).

Like particle theories, string theories describe the world in terms of particles and their interactions; unlike in particle theories, however, these are derived concepts. It is the function of the string theorist to derive complex particle behavior from a minimal subset of basic properties of the fundamental string.

Calculation in string theory reveals that the masses of the different particles sometimes have crazy attributes. More precisely, we calculate the square of the mass of each particle and normally, the mass-squared is a positive number (if the particle is massive, like an electron) or zero (if the particle is massless, like a photon or a graviton). In some cases, however, the mass-squared turns out to be negative! Such a particle is called a “tachyon”.

If the tachyon turn out to be real, that is, exists in reality, then this implies something profound about the validity of the string theory method of particle definition. This elevates the description of particles from strictly an observational practice to a mathematical definition of particles from first cause assumptions.

This reductionist approach: "to discover what really is happening" is foundational to the scientific edifice. Such a pursuit to derive basic causation is important to adhere. This pursuit is a basic requirement in the practice of science.

Upside-down potential

Consider a pendulum with its weight sitting at rest at the bottom of its arc. Let’s call that position x0. If a force is applied to the weight of the pendulum, it will swing and its position located at any time on its arc will correspond to real number values.

Now consider an initial condition where at time t=0, the pendulum is pointing straight up with its weigh located at the top of its arc. Clearly, this is unstable, but at least in classical physics one can imagine that the pendulum can be so carefully balanced it will remain pointing straight up indefinitely so long as it is not perturbed.

In an open system that is described by a non- Hermitian P/T complex number system something unexpected happens when there is a P/T state change occurs to perturb the pendulum from its straight up position.

The weight of the pendulum does not fall to the bottom of its arc.

Complex analysis shows that the pendulum repeatedly slides right back up to the top of the arc, and actually spends most of its time there. It is extremely unlikely to find the classical pendulum far from the origin; it is most probable to find the classical particle near x=0.

At the quantum level, a particle in this upside-down potential is in a bound state strongly localized at the origin. The explanation for this surprising behavior is that we have extended real space to complex space. Complex numbers differ from real numbers in that the complex numbers are not ordered. If a and b are real numbers, we can say that a>b or b>a.

However, even though the real numbers are embedded in the complex numbers, we cannot say that one complex number is greater than another complex number, so it makes no sense to say that the “bottom” of the potential is at x=0! One must think in new ways when working in the complex domain.

We learn from this model that quantum theories need not obey the conventional mathematical condition of Hermiticity so long as they obey the physical geometric condition of space-time-reflection symmetry (PT symmetry).

PT symmetry challenges a standard convention in physics—the widely held belief that a quantum Hamiltonian must be Hermitian. And, because PT symmetry is a weaker condition than Hermiticity, there are infinitely many Hamiltonians that are PT symmetric but non-Hermitian; we can now study new kinds of quantum theories that would have been rejected in the past as being unphysical. Moreover, PT-symmetric systems exhibit a feature that Hermitian systems cannot; the energy levels become complex when there is a change on P/T symmetry.

The transition from real to complex energies is a key feature of PT-symmetric systems and it is called the PT phase transition. At this transition the system goes from a state of physical equilibrium (called a state of unbroken PT symmetry) to nonequilibrium (broken PT symmetry).

The imitation of the LENR reaction is marked by a broken PT symmetry. This is one reason why the LENR active particle is an analog tachyon.

A hypothetical particle with complex rest mass would always travel faster than the speed of light. Such particles are called tachyons. There is a strong chance that LENR is based on analog tachyons via metallic hydrogen nanoparticles.

If the rest mass m is Complex this implies that the denominator is Complex because the total energy is observable and thus must be real. Therefore, the quantity under the square root must be negative, which can only happen if v is greater than c. As noted by Gregory Benford et al., special relativity implies that tachyons, if they existed, could be used to communicate backwards in time (see tachyonic antitelephone). Because time travel is considered to be unphysical, tachyons are believed by physicists either not to exist, or else to be incapable of interacting with normal matter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyonic_antitelephone

In quantum field theory, complex mass would induce tachyon condensation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon_condensation

We know that tachyon condensation exists as demonstrated in Leif Holmlid's experiments where metallic hydrogen produces mesons. If Holmlid is producing mesons, it may be possible using LENR to produce a time machine.

Tachyons in 3D for the first time?

Could the most striking evidence of 'strange radiation' have been discovered, lurking in the pristine reactor crust dunes of the LION reactor?

https://steemit.com/science/@m…dericks-tachyon-structure

Composite, 3D and RAW images in links from steemit article.

https://youtu.be/V_3_gDl1ZRM

@Bruce__H:

What is exciting and mind blowing in that a nanoparticle can be put together that acts just like a particle that is completely predicted by string theory. That nanoparticle is metallic hydrogen and the particle is the tachyon. Holmlid still beleive that the mesons he is seeing are coming from fusion. but it could be that those mesons are coming from tachyon condinsation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon_condensation

Quote

Although the notion of a tachyonic imaginary mass might seem troubling because there is no classical interpretation of an imaginary mass, the mass is not quantized. Rather, the scalar field is; even for tachyonic quantum fields, the field operators at spacelike separated points still commute (or anticommute), thus preserving causality. Therefore, information still does not propagate faster than light,[1] and solutions grow exponentially, but not superluminally (there is no violation of causality).

The "imaginary mass" really means that the system becomes unstable. The zero value field is at a local maximum rather than a local minimum of its potential energy, much like a ball at the top of a hill. A very small impulse (which will always happen due to quantum fluctuations) will lead the field to roll down with exponentially increasing amplitudes toward the local minimum. In this way, tachyon condensation drives a physical system that has reached a local limit and might naively be expected to produce physical tachyons, to an alternate stable state where no physical tachyons exist. Once the tachyonic field reaches the minimum of the potential, its quanta are not tachyons any more but rather are ordinary particles with a positive mass-squared, such as the Higgs boson.[2]

In a upside down potential, when virtual particle fluctuations push the tachyon's bloated energy potential down the hill, a meson is created from that energy and the potential climbs up the potential hill again. Then the tachyon gathers more energy through transmuting more matter into energy, when it has accumulated more energy than it needs to produce another meson, then the tachyon give birth to that new meson. A string theory based prediction about how tachyons work is born out in Holmlid's experiments.

LENR is wonderful.

Quote from Alan Smith

These are particle tracks from Lion's fuel tubes. The lower one (which I didn't take) is fairly low definition, but does show what might be a 'corkscrew' track on the outer surface.

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Alan,

Are you also looking at Lion's tubes? Where did these pictures come from? Do you have links to those pictures? Are there more such pictures? Can we get all the Lion tube pictures that have so far been produced reposted to this site?

'corkscrew' track have been around in LENR ash for more than a decade. These pictures have come from many LENR experiments. I remember seeing a list of such experiments compiled by Bob Greenyer under strange radiation.

https://steemit.com/science/@m…ons-with-laser-microscopy

More tracks using a laser microscope.

It may be that the impact marks are produced by subatomic particles generated by LENR reactions occurring in the first level of plastic (plastic jar) that is holding the LENR fuel. Such particles might include the kind of particles that Holmlid sees in his experiments. These include neutral atomic fragments, kaons, pions, muons, and other mesons. These particles if any are not neutrons because they would have shown up in the neutron detectors.

The impact marks show signs of plastic deformation as the plastic responds to a meteor like impact from a particle: a sort of impact crater if you please.

I can't tell if the central part of the crater is penetrated clean through or if the particle bounce off the plastic and just generates a dent in the plastic..

It is good that LENR strange radiation shows up in plastic soda bottle material. No expensive CR39 to develop...very convenient. All you need is a laser microscope.

Quote from Alan Smith

You just need a decent microscope. And know how to use it.

Maybe it is possible to test for LENR activity by putting a cold reactor in a soda bottle and then look for crater impact marks from high energy subatomic particles coming from the reactor after a few weeks of exposure time and using a decent microscope that you know how to use.

That would eliminate the expense of a calorimeter and probably be more accurate.