Conjecture 1 explains why an electron in a particle accelerator appears as a point particle whereas its classical radius is quite large. The higher the energy of the electron, the freer it appears to be. In a typical semiconductor, the gap between the valence band and the conduction band is just 5 eV. An electron in the conduction band is a collective phenomenon in a semiconductor, and a hole is another collective phenomenon which behaves like a positron.
We do not know what the energy of a true free electron would be if we could lift it out of the vacuum.
The existence of the antiparticle for electron is required by our model: it is the counterpart of a denser electron zone.
We do not know what the energy of a true free electron would be if we could lift it out of the vacuum.
The existence of the antiparticle for electron is required by our model: it is the counterpart of a denser electron zone.
Conjecture 2. The angular momentum and the magnetic moment of the electron are produced by the rotation of the cloud of virtual electrons and positrons.
The angular momentum (spin) of the electron is 1/2 h/2π. It is 1/2 of the minimum nonzero value one can attain through rotation of ordinary matter in an orbit. Maybe the relevant metric around the electron squeezes everything in the tangential direction so that the circumference of a circle around the electron is effectively 4πr for the rotating cloud?
Why does the cloud always rotate, and always has the same angular momentum? The following may explain that: an electron-positron pair is born as an "atom" of positronium. Tidal forces make the clouds of the electron and the positron not to rotate relative to each other but they do rotate relative to an inertial observer. When the clouds are freed, they keep rotating.
Why does the Dirac equation describe the cloud? What happens in the cloud in the zitterbewegung?
The orbital angular momentum of an electron on the 2p orbital in hydrogen is 2X the spin angular momentum of the electron. Why are these numbers related?
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e- electron 2e+ virtual positron
Maybe the electron is surrounded by a rotating cloud that is equivalent to a virtual positron with roughly 2X the normal charge of a positron? The 2X is approximately the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron.
The orbit of the virtual positron would be responsible for the angular momentum and the magnetic moment of the electron. The values of those are far too large to be explained by a spherical electron whose size is the classical electron radius. But they could be explained as the motion of virtual electrons and positrons in a cloud.
In a sense, the virtual particles circling the electron are permanent virtual particles, in contrast to the short-lived virtual particles in a Feynman diagram.
How does Lorentz invariance require the existence of the electron spin and the antiparticle in the Dirac equation? Our positronium model above does not have anything to do with Lorentz invariance, and it still predicts the existence of an antiparticle and an electron spin.
Conjecture 3. The annihilation of an electron-positron pair just means that the density variations of electrons and positrons are evened out. The energy escapes as electromagnetic waves. Thus, the annihilation is the LED light of empty space.
In annihilation, no electron or positron is really destroyed. They are returned to the pool of virtual particles. If the Dirac equation would describe just a single free electron in otherwise empty space, then it would be mysterious how the electron wave and the positron wave can exactly cancel each other out so that only electromagnetic waves remain. Classically, if we have coupled fields, it never happens that the coupling completely erases the wave in one of the fields. That would be a miraculous coincidence, if a wave would completely disappear. Similarly, we never observe the annihilation of two photons, even though the photon is formally its own antiparticle.
In annihilation, no electron or positron is really destroyed. They are returned to the pool of virtual particles. If the Dirac equation would describe just a single free electron in otherwise empty space, then it would be mysterious how the electron wave and the positron wave can exactly cancel each other out so that only electromagnetic waves remain. Classically, if we have coupled fields, it never happens that the coupling completely erases the wave in one of the fields. That would be a miraculous coincidence, if a wave would completely disappear. Similarly, we never observe the annihilation of two photons, even though the photon is formally its own antiparticle.
Conjecture 4. Photons are temporary polarization of the virtual electron-positron pairs. There is really no such thing as a wave of the electromagnetic field. It is always just a polarization wave of virtual pairs. The Coulomb force makes the virtual electrons and positrons move.
A photon has spin 1, which means that it carries a large angular momentum. If we have a system where a negative charge is orbiting a positive charge, their motion will produce circularly polarized waves that carry away the angular momentum of the system. We can envisage virtual electron-positron pairs in space starting to mimic the rotation of the system. The angular momentum can be carried arbitrarily far by the rotation of the virtual pairs. Eventually, the angular momentum can be absorbed far away by a copy of our system.
We may also envisage that our system sends virtual copies of itself to space. The collective motion of virtual electron-positron pairs adds up to a single virtual orbiting electron-positron pair where the distance of the virtual electron and positron is large. The virtual copy can be "absorbed" by another system far away.
In annihilation, as the electron and positron clouds even each other out, the result is a disturbance of the virtual electron-positron pairs. That disturbance is what we call electromagnetic waves.
Conjecture 5. The only electromagnetic force is the Coulomb force. Its Lorentz transformation produces the illusion of a separate magnetic force. The Coulomb force always propagates at the speed of light of the global Minkowski space. Locally, polarization of a refractive medium, e.g., glass slows down the propagation of polarization waves, but the information in the Coulomb force always travels at the global speed of light.
Conjecture 5 reflects the analogy of our optical theory of gravity and this blog post.
Conjecture 5 reflects the analogy of our optical theory of gravity and this blog post.
Open problem 6. Why is the propagation speed of the Coulomb force the same as the speed of polarization waves in the vacuum, that is, the speed of light? Why is light not slower than the Coulomb force? Or maybe it is?
Conjecture 7. Particles that move in the vacuum, in a sense, themselves build the virtual electron-positron pairs around themselves. That is how we achieve Lorentz invariance. An observer himself supplies the energy to build the vacuum polarization around him. He cannot measure his absolute speed relative to virtual pairs in the vacuum. The energy content of the vacuum is exactly zero if there are no field excitations present.
Our conjectures resurrect the aether theories of the 19th century. An observer drags the aether along with him and therefore cannot measure his speed relative to the aether.
We could say that an electron is a slower-than-light disturbance in the sea of virtual electron-positron pairs, while a photon is a light-speed disturbance. A free electron-positron pair can be seen as a frozen photon. We can convert the pair back into live photons through annihilation.
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