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Graviton and IR Radiation
Name: Ed
Status: educator
Grade: 12+
Location: FL
Country: USA
Date: Winter 2012-2013
Question:
Has the concept of a Gravity particle "Graviton" that operates in the manner of photons and radiation of IR to give the gravitational field been posited? With a center Gravitron [for lack of a better name] some of the mystery of strong nuclear gravity and interactions over great distances be resolved. This would also act as a model that has the gravitron sequester positrons preferentially over electrons to form protons by combining with positrons and neutrons by combining with both a positron and an electron to give a neutron and account for a very large amount of the mysterious dark matter. Since hydrogen starts the stellar production of all matter, all neutrons would thus have matter as both "dark" and reflective matter. The strong nuclear force is sufficient to allow "protons" to coexist in the nucleus of the Bohr Rutherford model.
Replies:
The “short answer” is YES. Gravity “particles” have been posited – called Gravitons. [Sorry, you got preempted on naming the “particle”]. Theoretical physicists have used the current “Standard Model” to estimate what properties such a “particle” should have.
I am using the terms “particles” and “waves” interchangeably because discussing “stuff” at the microlevel blurs whether what you are referring to is a “wave” model or a “particle” model. What is known within the framework of the Standard Model is that the graviton should be a “spin2 boson” because it has infinite range, that is, the field does not converge. That is the way gravity works. It interacts, admittedly weaker, no matter how far apart the bodies are.
There are other problems. The mathematics do not give the “right” answer. The field only works to “first order”. Higher orders of the field model diverge. This is analogous to the “ultraviolet catastrophe” that led to the quantization of electromagnetic radiation in “black bodies”, that led to the invention of photons.
The web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graviton goes into a lot more detail.
Vince Calder
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the question. Yes, the graviton has been proposed as an elementary particle. However, to the best of my knowledge, it has not been experimentally discovered. Often, things that "look good on paper" do not actually occur. The graviton would need to be a Boson particle and obey Bose-Einstein statistics.
I would like to pose some questions to you regarding your text below. How would a graviton sequester a positron? Why would a graviton prefer a positron over an electron? If there was a preference, then there would be some breaking of a fundamental symmetry of nature.
A positron and an electron will not exist for more than a few microseconds as a positronium system. They annihilate to form two anti-parallel 511 keV photons. This annihilation is used in positron emission tomography in nuclear medicine.
I hope this helps answer your questions. Please let me know if you have further questions.
Thanks
Jeff Grell
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