scholarly journals The Enigma of the Muon and Tau Solved by Emergent Quantum Mechanics?

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1471
Author(s):  
Theo van Holten

This paper addresses the long-standing question of how it may be explained that the three charged leptons (the electron, muon and tau particle) have different masses, despite their conformity in other respects. In the field of Emergent Quantum Mechanics non-singular electron models are being revisited, and from this exploration has come a possible answer. In this paper a deformable droplet model is considered. It is shown how the model can be made self-consistent, whilst obeying the laws of momentum and energy conservation as well as Larmor’s radiation law. The droplet appears to have three different static equilibrium configurations, each with a different mass. Tentatively, these three equilibrium masses were assumed to correspond with the measured masses of the charged leptons. The droplet model was tuned accordingly, and was thereby completely quantified. The dynamics of the droplet then showed a “De Broglie-like” relation p = K / λ . Beat patterns in the vibrations of the droplet play the role of the matter waves of usual quantum mechanics. The value of K , calculated by the droplet theory, practically equals Planck’s constant: K ≅ h . This fact seems to confirm the correctness of identifying the three types of charged leptons with the equilibria of a droplet of charge.

2012 ◽  
Vol 09 (05) ◽  
pp. 1250048 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. ACOSTA ◽  
P. FERNÁNDEZ DE CÓRDOBA ◽  
J. M. ISIDRO ◽  
J. L. G. SANTANDER

Quantum mechanics emerges à la Verlinde from a foliation of ℝ3 by holographic screens, when regarding the latter as entropy reservoirs that a particle can exchange entropy with. This entropy is quantized in units of Boltzmann's constant kB. The holographic screens can be treated thermodynamically as stretched membranes. On that side of a holographic screen where spacetime has already emerged, the energy representation of thermodynamics gives rise to the usual quantum mechanics. A knowledge of the different surface densities of entropy flow across all screens is equivalent to a knowledge of the quantum-mechanical wavefunction on ℝ3. The entropy representation of thermodynamics, as applied to a screen, can be used to describe quantum mechanics in the absence of spacetime, that is, quantum mechanics beyond a holographic screen, where spacetime has not yet emerged. Our approach can be regarded as a formal derivation of Planck's constant ℏ from Boltzmann's constant kB.


Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Walleczek ◽  
Gerhard Grössing ◽  
Paavo Pylkkänen ◽  
Basil Hiley

Emergent quantum mechanics (EmQM) explores the possibility of an ontology for quantum mechanics. The resurgence of interest in realist approaches to quantum mechanics challenges the standard textbook view, which represents an operationalist approach. The possibility of an ontological, i.e., realist, quantum mechanics was first introduced with the original de Broglie–Bohm theory, which has also been developed in another context as Bohmian mechanics. This Editorial introduces a Special Issue featuring contributions which were invited as part of the David Bohm Centennial symposium of the EmQM conference series (www.emqm17.org). Questions directing the EmQM research agenda are: Is reality intrinsically random or fundamentally interconnected? Is the universe local or nonlocal? Might a radically new conception of reality include a form of quantum causality or quantum ontology? What is the role of the experimenter agent in ontological quantum mechanics? The Special Issue also includes research examining ontological propositions that are not based on the Bohm-type nonlocality. These include, for example, local, yet time-symmetric, ontologies, such as quantum models based upon retrocausality. This Editorial provides topical overviews of thirty-one contributions which are organized into seven categories to provide orientation.


Author(s):  
Steven E. Vigdor

Chapter 7 describes the fundamental role of randomness in quantum mechanics, in generating the first biomolecules, and in biological evolution. Experiments testing the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox have demonstrated, via Bell’s inequalities, that no local hidden variable theory can provide a viable alternative to quantum mechanics, with its fundamental randomness built in. Randomness presumably plays an equally important role in the chemical assembly of a wide array of polymer molecules to be sampled for their ability to store genetic information and self-replicate, fueling the sort of abiogenesis assumed in the RNA world hypothesis of life’s beginnings. Evidence for random mutations in biological evolution, microevolution of both bacteria and antibodies and macroevolution of the species, is briefly reviewed. The importance of natural selection in guiding the adaptation of species to changing environments is emphasized. A speculative role of cosmological natural selection for black-hole fecundity in the evolution of universes is discussed.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 641-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremiah James ◽  
Christian Joas

As part of an attempt to establish a new understanding of the earliest applications of quantum mechanics and their importance to the overall development of quantum theory, this paper reexamines the role of research on molecular structure in the transition from the so-called old quantum theory to quantum mechanics and in the two years immediately following this shift (1926–1928). We argue on two bases against the common tendency to marginalize the contribution of these researches. First, because these applications addressed issues of longstanding interest to physicists, which they hoped, if not expected, a complete quantum theory to address, and for which they had already developed methods under the old quantum theory that would remain valid under the new mechanics. Second, because generating these applications was one of, if not the, principal means by which physicists clarified the unity, generality, and physical meaning of quantum mechanics, thereby reworking the theory into its now commonly recognized form, as well as developing an understanding of the kinds of predictions it generated and the ways in which these differed from those of the earlier classical mechanics. More broadly, we hope with this article to provide a new viewpoint on the importance of problem solving to scientific research and theory construction, one that might complement recent work on its role in science pedagogy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Weser ◽  
Leon Freitag ◽  
Kai Guther ◽  
Ali Alavi ◽  
Giovanni Li Manni

<div>Stochastic-CASSCF and DMRG procedures have been utilized to quantify the role of the electron correlation mechanisms that in a Fe-porphyrin model system are responsible for the differential stabilization of the triplet over the quintet state. Orbital entanglement diagrams and CI-coefficients of the wave function in a localised orbital basis allow for an effective interpretation of the role of charge-transfer configurations. A preliminary version of the <i>Stochastic Generalized Active Space Self-Consistent Field</i> method has been developed and is here introduced to further assess the pi-backdonation stabilizing effect.</div><div>By the new method excitations between metal and ligand orbitals can selectively be removed from the complete CI expansion. It is demonstrated that these excitations are key to the differential stabilization of the triplet, effectively leading to a quantitative measure of the correlation enhanced pi-backdonation.</div><div><br></div>


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