Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 86, pp. 8618-8619, November 1989 Physics Triton, ... electron, ... cosmon,.. : An infinite regression? (near-Dirac particles/electron g factor/the elementary particle/quantum jump/cosmonium world-atom) HANS DEHMELT Department of Physics, FM-15, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 Contributed by Hans Dehmelt, August 4, 1989

ABSTRACT I propose an elementary particle model in of particles necessitated the introduction of new forces, I which the simplest near-Dirac particles triton, proton, and assume that the particles in each new layer are held together electron are members of the three top layers of a bottomless by new stronger and shorter range forces, which always stack. Each particle is a composite of three particles from the dominate gravitation. The triton model is distinguished by next layer below in an infinite regression approaching Dirac great simplicity. It also eliminates Dirac's unpalatable pos- point particles. The cosmon, an immensely heavy lower layer tulate that a physical entity, such as an electron or a quark, subquark, is the elementary particle. The world-atom, a tightly has zero extension in space. After all, zero extension is a bound cosmon/anticosmon pair of zero relativistic total mass, mathematical limit concept that in the physical world can arose from the nothing state in a quantum jump. Rapid decay only be approached but never be attained (5). Discovery of a of the pair launched the big bang and created the universe. very light d4 subquark at a future superaccelerator would support the model. To test these speculations beyond N = 4 You know, it would be sufficient to really understand the one may have to go into a laboratory of cosmic proportions. electron. As one proceeds to higher-N layers and the forces between Albert Einstein their occupants increase in strength, it is conceivable that the dN/anti-dN interaction becomes so strong that the total In this paper I focus only on the simplest particles of nature, relativistic energy for N = C takes on a value near zero. We the spin 1/2 near-Dirac particles held together by short-range assume now that the dN subquarks have been realized in this forces. They may now all be considered as is3 2S1/2 states universe only up to the elementary particle, the cosmon of composed of three of the next simpler, less imperfect near- immense mass for which N = C is a finite moderately large Dirac particles (Fig. 1). To begin, with some stretch of the number. It is then likely that the metastability of the primeval imagination, the triton (and also 3He) may be viewed as the "nothing" (6) state of zero relativistic mass/energy was first approximation, dl, of a Dirac point particle. The mass of the baryons or d2 particles, the next better approximation, is about one-third of that of the triton. The baryon masses are larger than those of their quark or d3 constituents also. STRUCTURES PARTICLES However, the small empirical size of quarks and the smallest known particles, electrons, suggests that their constituents, the new d4 subquarks, are much heavier (1) than these d3 H He3 NUCLEI particles. The small mass of a d3 is due to the very tight di PARTICLES binding of its heavy components. Thus, from triton to elec- tron, the mass-ratio PmN = m(dN+1)/m(dN) is increasing. Stern's measurements of -5 for the g factor of the proton p n n NUCLEONS signaled its (d2) substructure. [At the time, with an appro- d2 PARTICLES priate magneton eh/2M(He)c, one could have calculated the g value =14,700 >> 2 for the spin 1/2 electronic ground state u u d e QUARKS/LEPTONS of the known composite He'-ion, e.g.] Thus, electron ex- d4 PARTICLES periments (2, 3) that clearly establish a g value after subtrac- tion of QED shifts differing from the Dirac value 2 would corroborate d3 substructure (1). d4 d4 d4 SUBQUARKS Quark/lepton substructure was first proposed by Salam and others, and a review of the subject is available (4). I propose (2, 3) to extend the triton substructure scheme to an d5 d5 d5 infinite number of layers. Below the four layers listed above, they contain higher order dN subquarks, with N = 5 -a oc. In each layer the particles are not identical but resemble each NO dN PARTICLES other in the same way as quarks and leptons do, with masses WITH N>C REALIZED varying as much as a factor 108. In an infinite regression to dc dc dc COSMON WITH N = C simpler particles ofever increasing mass, they asymptotically HEAVIEST PARTICLE approach Dirac point particles. A Dirac point particle is EVER TO APPEAR characterized by a ratio of particle radius to Compton wave- IN THIS UNIVERSE length PR = 0. The assumed trends PRN -O 0 and PmN -x,0 for N -X00 are in harmony and continue those apparent in the N -_ 00 LIMIT upper layers. As in the past the discovery of each new layer dX do) do IS DIRAC POINT PARTICLE The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact. FIG. 1. Triton model of near-Dirac particles. 8618 Physics: Dehmelt Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86 (1989) 8619 caused primarily by an appreciable admixture of a state itself. The best record decoded so far is the cosmic back- describing a tightly bound cosmon/anticosmon pair, the ground radiation. New more specific tests of the triton model cosmonium world-atom of near zero relativistic mass/ may suggest themselves when it is studied more closely. The energy. At the beginning of the universe in a one-time event cosmonium atom introduced here is merely an updated of cosmic rarity the metastable "nothing" state decayed into version of Lemaitre's world-atom (5) whose radioactive an early gravitation-dominated standard big bang state in decay set off the primeval fireball. which again rest mass energy, kinetic energy, and potential energy add up to zero. The decay occurred in a spontaneous quantum jump not unlike one recently observed (2) in an This note is an expanded version ofmaterial presented in the Leigh individual trapped metastable barium ion decaying into a Page Prize Lecture on April 25, 1988, at Yale University. I thank my ground-state ion and a photon. However, dN particles/ colleague Ernest Henley for a very important critical comment and antiparticles with decreasing N < C are now part of the big my colleague Robert W. Williams and also Diana Dundore for bang plasma. Simultaneously with these dN subquarks came reading the manuscript. The support of the National Science Foun- into being spacial relations between their components and dation is gratefully acknowledged. potential clocks derived from their decay times and orbit periods of their constituents. In this model of cosmic origins 1. Brodsky, S. & Drell, S. (1980) Phys. Rev. D 22, 2236-2243. the usual "singularity"-another mathematical limit con- 2. Dehmelt, H. (1988) Phys. Scr. T22, 102-110. cept-is replaced by a cosmon bound to an anticosmon, both 3. Dehmelt, H. (1988) Z. Phys. D. 10, 127-134. of finite extension. 4. Lyons, L. (1983) Prog. Particle Nuclear Phys. 10, 227-304. A quantum jump requires an "observer" (2, 3), as accord- 5. Lemattre, G. (1950) The Primeval Atom (Van Nostrand, New ing to Bohr, paraphrased by Wheeler (7), "no elementary York), p. 24. phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a registered phe- 6. Vilenkin, A. (1984) Phys. Rev. D 30, 509-515. nomenon." The "observing" recording apparatus registering 7. Wheeler, J. (1980) in Some Strangeness in the Proportions, ed. the primeval quantum jump was the developing universe Woolf, H. (Addison-Wesley, Reading, PA), pp. 341-375.