{"id":5458,"date":"2015-06-04T21:11:42","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T02:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5458"},"modified":"2015-06-04T21:12:43","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T02:12:43","slug":"another-reason-to-like-axions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=5458","title":{"rendered":"Another Reason to Like Axions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s something from the science desk. Over the past 2 years, I’ve been rooting for the axion. I’ve posted three<\/a> different<\/a> blogs<\/a> about this hypothetical sub-atomic particle, and why a good number of physicists are interested in it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the axion from the public’s point of view is that it is a dark horse candidate to explain “dark matter”, the spooky, nearly invisible stuff floating throughout the voids of space which help to shape and guide the galaxies and their mega-families (i.e., galaxies made of galaxies). <\/p>\n

The main contended for the dark matter crown remains the super-symmetrical “light stable particle”, one of a new family of particles that is predicted by string theory (and a variety of other high-level cosmic formulas). Unfortunately, the search for the supersymmetry family has gone into overtime at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. It was supposed to be found in the first big run of the collider (which did find the Higgs particle), but surprised everyone by its absence. The LHC is now back and running at souped-up energy levels, seeking to blast those tricky supersymmetrical thingies out of their etherial lairds. It could take at least a year, perhaps several years, for the LHC to make a thorough scan across the energy levels that it now accesses. But if the lightest supersymmetrical particle still doesn’t show up, then a whole ‘nuther idea is needed.<\/p>\n

The axion is one of the strongest candidates for such an alternative approach to dark matter. It was originally conceived as a way to resolve a problem with the sub-atomic strong force, i.e. the Charge \/ Parity symmetry problem in the interaction between neutrons and protons in the atom’s nucleus. An alternative explanation to resolve that problem has still not yet been found, so the axion might still play the hero’s role in settling that dilemma. But then physicists realized that it had enough gravitational mass and the characteristic of near-invisibility to electromagnetic forces such that it could also play the role that mysterious dark matter plays. Roughly speaking, if found, the axion and its field might thus kill two science mystery birds with one stone. <\/p>\n

And now I read that it might get a third bird too. Despite the great joy in science-land last year around the long-awaited confirmation of the Higgs boson and field, there remains a big problem with it. The Higgs turns out to be be way too small<\/a> in mass and energy to play in the same league with a quanta of “gravitation state”, the thing that makes mass the way it is. I.e., something with mass has its momentum affected by gravity in distinctive ways (gravity warps space for any particle, even massless bosons like the photon — but it warps space a lot more when mass is present in the particle). The gravitational state quanta is equivalent to what is called the “Planck Mass”. This would be akin to a tiny, foundational bit of gravity, the tiny bits which swarm together and form the gravitational field. <\/p>\n

Another way to think about this is that the Plank Mass is the mass of the smallest possible black hole<\/a>. Black holes are pretty darn dense and heavy. So even the tiniest possible piece of it would still be relatively heavy, i.e. would still need a lot of energy to exist. And the Higgs particle as we know it just doesn’t have such a level of energy, even though it supposedly does what that tiny chunk of pure gravity could do, i.e. slow down the acceleration of anything that has it, and warp the space around it. <\/p>\n

The proposed answer to the problem was, you guessed it, supersymmetry. The Higgs would somehow interact with virtual heavy supersymmetric particles popping up from the “quantum foam” (the energy instability of the vacuum), and thus gain the “kick” needed to do what the Higgs actually does to particles that it conveys mass to. But once again, the supersymmetrical train is behind schedule, and if it doesn’t show up in another few years, it might well not be running at all. And guess what? If it doesn’t, the axion is ready once again to fill the void! Under a new theory just proposed<\/a> by some theoretical physicists, the axion field can act like a spring, absorbing or releasing energy based on the environment; in some situations it gets wound up and has the high energy expected of the gravity quanta; in other situations it relaxes or unwinds, akin to the low energy Higgs that we know and observe. So, we get the best of both worlds — we get the meek and mild Higgs particle which shows up in the Large Hadron Collider, but also the superman-strength Higgs when it has to give mass to real particles — all with the help of an unwinding axion field interaction. <\/p>\n

Once again, axions come to the rescue !! But I’m getting ahead of things. Right now, even though there still is no supersymmetry, there still aren’t any axions. Various experiments in search of the axion continue, including the big ADMX detector system<\/a> out in Washington State. Like the much bigger and more expensive Large Hadron Collider in Europe, the ADMX is now ramping up to full strength. So as with supersymmetry, it’s just about time for the axion<\/a> to show up or be forgotten. The betting odds still favor “Susy”, as some physicists whimsically call the supersymmetry concept. But the axion is still in the game, holding its own as a feasible alternative. This is an exciting little horse race in science, and we may soon know which horse is going to make it across the finish line. (There are some European bookmakers who take bets on scientific questions<\/a>, but I’m not sure if they have a SUSY versus Axion bet going yet. However, the now-gone Intrade did take bets<\/a> on when SUSY would show up.) I’ll there on the sidelines of the track, yelling “go Axion, go!!” Just as though it were the Kentucky Derby! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s something from the science desk. Over the past 2 years, I’ve been rooting for the axion. I’ve posted three different blogs about this hypothetical sub-atomic particle, and why a good number of physicists are interested in it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the axion from the public’s point of view is that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5461,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5458\/revisions\/5461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}