Virtual Particles – A new look at double slit weirdness

I was looking at a web site by Hitachi Global concerning “Advanced Research – Electron phase microscopy” today.   They have a neat movie based on the diagram of an electron microscope which you can find here:

(link to diagram)     http://www.hitachi.com/rd/research/em/doubleslit-f1.html

 These pictures are theirs and are copyrighted by them so all that can be done is show you the link.

Here is a link to their video of the results of a 30 minute run (sped up to just a minute or two):

http://www.hqrd.hitachi.co.jp/rd/moviee/doubleslite-n.wmv

They send electrons one at a time from the source, about 10 per second.  Those that make it around the rod are detected and displayed on a monitor.  

 After about 20 minutes, clear interference patterns develop on the monitor as shown in their video.   

The electrons are accelerated through 50,000 volts, and achieve velocities about 40% of the speed of light.

 These electrons appear to be passing simultaneously around the barrier and interfering with themselves.  Either that or they have some sort of lingering effect due to ctime as I posted in a recent article.   I have a new thought:

Virtual Particles

I believe that there is one obvious answer to such a weird quantum effect – virtual particles.   Photons and any particle achieving significant relativistic effects, such as high speed electrons, atoms, molecules, bucky balls, cats, and anything that can be raised to near the speed of light can also produce companion virtual particles – virtual photons, electrons, etc. when their flight paths are significantly disturbed.  (Well maybe not cats, but who knows?)   

We are getting into new theory here with a new thought experiment!   If an electron such as those in an electron microscope is accelerated to a high enough speed is then jostled by close encounter with a small barrier, it will generate an identical virtual electron on the other side of the barrier.  This applies to any particle raised to relativistic speeds.  If the other side of the barrier is closed off by a detector, then the virtual particle disappears without effect on either the detector or the original electron, being absorbed by the barrier along with the original electron.  If the barrier is open, however, it recombines with the electron after passing around the barrier to produce an interference with itself during the recombination process.

It is similar in effect to the process described in my Quantum Weirdness – Part 2 Double Slit Weirdness post whereby the photon melds around a slit.  Perhaps it is not a meld but a virtual photon recombination – the effect would be the same.

A photon, or any relativistic electron, or other particle jostled by the fields around atoms in a close encounter with the edges of a slit or other barrier would generate a virtual photon, electron or particle that would appear on the other side of the offending barrier and then recombine at a point downstream to cause an interference.   Barriers that block the other side would kill the virtual particle.   A particle that did not exist long enough to recombine with its generating particle would die without causing any effect on the offending detector or barrier.    Only particles that come close enough to be jostled by the fields of the barrier atoms would generate virtual particles on the other side.  Others not close enough to the barrier to be jostled by it would not create the virtual particles.

It is my thought that where there is such jostling, both the particle and its virtual particle might die in the edge of  the barrier if one or the other side were not open, and only those electrons that are far enough from the barrier to not create a virtual pair would continue through the open port to the screen, and thus not show any interference pattern.   

Only if both sides are open would a virtual pair survive a close encounter with a barrier and then be attracted together to recombine on a path toward a pattern maximum.   Scattering around the maximum would be a result of random spacing of near misses and pure chance.

It is another thought that if an electron is buffeted by a barrier and survives the trip but its virtual electron is lost in the material of the barrier, the electron that survives will still be affected by the virtual particle at the point of its destruction, perhaps its phase or displacement or both.   It just won’t show an interference pattern, but it would show some effect of the structure of the barrier material at the point the virtual particle is destroyed, making it possible to “see” the structure of the material within the barrier itself.  Maybe that is just a description of how an electron phase microscope actually works.  The phase is changed by the destruction of the virtual electron and that change depends on the structure at the point the virtual electron lands. 

Copyright 2007,

James A. Tabb

Marietta, Georgia

Time Zero – A real Place?

“Time Zero – Ctime”

I would like to discuss a few other things about photons and also very high speed particles and their implications for a special point in time.  Some of these are just thought experiments and may have no basis for a new theory, but some of you may find it interesting at least and perhaps there is some promise of truth in them.

Since the photon experiences zero time during flight, it would be nice to know what is actually going on within the photon during the possibly billions of years of its flight. We know that near the speed of light, time slows dramatically and that a spacewoman in a space ship at near light speed would experience time as if it passes normally, but a stationary observer would see things quite differently. A clock on the wall continues to tick off regular seconds to her while her brother on earth gets older at a much faster rate, all the while knowing that her clock is going very slowly and she is staying young as he grows old.

But a photon is going much faster than a space ship ever can. The entire time of flight is reduced to zero so nothing can happen within the photon during flight.  The flight ends as soon as it begins for the photon. Yet we know there is a finite flight time from our observer perspective, sometimes billions of years for flight, as we see the same photon.

An interesting point is that the photon is capable of living forever because it cannot age if time is stopped, and in cloud chamber experiments we can measure the lifetime of some collision reactions only because the time of reaction is slowed for a high-speed particle due to time dilation. Time dilation near or at c is a real thing.

Yet we know that there is a finite and measurable time of flight from there to here from our perspective, and that a photon, if it has a frequency associated with it should vibrate hundreds of times during each foot of travel.  That is, if we believe it is still vibrating and not frozen as well. When it lands we know that its frequency is related to its energy and thus its color.  Does the photon actually experience this vibration, or does it all occur only when it starts and again when it encounters an obstacle that slows it down (such as within a crystal, or passage through water), or when it changes direction such as during a bounce off of a mirror… or does it occur again only at the moment of destruction, or as it melds around a small object?

We know that the emission of a photon is related to the change in energy states of an electron and both the energy and the frequency of the photon are related to that change of state. So the frequency is a physical attribute of the photon. We aren’t certain what exactly is going on since there are the contradictory facts that the clock of a photon does not change during flight, yet significant time elapses externally, and a photon has vibrational modes.  We also know that the phase doesn’t change, so the implication there is that no vibration actually takes place.  Is something else going on?

Ctime

Here is a new thought. If the time experienced by a photon is zero, where is the photon during the time of its flight? Is there such a time (physicists call it null time) and is it possibly a real place, a relativistic time zero?  Let me call it “ctime” for simplicity, time at speed c.  Ctime would then be where the photon is during flight, a place where time is stopped. Nothing happens, nothing moves, at least not within the photon. The photon moves through space, and doesn’t even vibrate, but the photon experiences nothing because it is embedded in ctime.

Now, suppose all ctimes are the same!  A special point located in relativistic time.    Not the same space-time, but the same time-space, a special place where time is stopped due to relativity, all connected by the null paths.  Photons that have paths that don’t cross would still be in the same place in time – ctime – throughout their flight, but would not ever occupy the same space.  

Photons that have paths that do cross would occupy the same space and same time at the crossing point even if they crossed several decades apart because both would be in ctime and both pass through the same space at some point. The physical times we calculate at the crossing (different) would not be the same as the ctime the photons would experience (same).  Ctime would exist for the photon throughout its existence and even afterward, at least until the null path was disturbed by another photon crossing the same null path.    I say that because the time is frozen and doesn’t change and therefore any point in the null path that is not disturbed remains undisturbed even if the last point of that path is a screen or detector or a piece of rock or someone’s eye.  How can the previous points know if time does not change for those points all stuck in ctime?

Would such photons interfere with each other? In other words, is it possible for a photon that passes through a slit today to actually interfere with another photon that comes through tomorrow?  They would both pass through the same space at the same time in timespace – ctime.  I think it is theoretically possible and thus becomes an alternate way to explain some quantum weirdness effects.  Certainly, it seems more possible than multiple universes.  When does the ctime collapse for a photon? If it is a real place in time, does it even know that the photon has ceased to exist?  For interference to occur in a slit due to ctime, it must continue to exist until at least something physical cuts through the spacetime of the path, such as the placement of a detector or the disturbance of another photon trying to occupy the same space and ctime.  Even then if the detector is removed before the second photon comes through, ctime (at the photon crossing point) is undisturbed unless the detector happens to disturb the point that the photon paths cross, normally some point well past the detector placement.

Let’s go over that again, slowly.  A photon is emitted.  It immediately stops all internal activity and is, in effect in suspended animation until it hits something.  For the photon, the distance of the flight path is shortened to zero and time stops.   Space and time are severely warped.  For the photon, the entire trip from a far galaxy is reduced to zero time and zero distance.  Both space and time are reduced to dots.   Space and time are warped that much.

We can conceive of space being zero distance, a dot, and create a very simple drawing with both ends of the path conjoined at a dot on the paper.  But what about time?   If time is reduced to a dot, where is it?   What I’m suggesting is that the time dot is the same place in time for all photons.  That place in time is what I’m calling ctime.    However, the time-space dot occupies the entire length of the flight path and continues to exist there until each point is later disturbed.   A null path consisting of a continuous line of space-ctime, like a deep valley in time that the photon passes through, warped by its speed.  The valley hangs around in time (ctime) even after the particle ceases to exist at every point in space, because time does not change there.

If the paths of two photons cross, but at different times as we measure it,  then the two photons exist in the same space, but not the same time (as we measure it) – different space-times.  Except… it is my suggestion that they do exist at the same time (for the photons) at the same space-ctime, and never come out of it until that particular space at the crossing point is disturbed.   It would be an alternate explanation for the interference of photons that are emitted one at a time over a period of days or weeks.  

The first photon through a given slot occupies a particular space and is also hung up in ctime.   Its presence in ctime for that space exists even after the photon hits the target.   Each point in the path of the photon experiences the photon in passing as a warp in time.  No information is possible for the past or the future of the photon – and so each point is left with a warped time that is frozen there in ctime.   When another photon happens to cross that same space later, the ctimes are also crossed at that same point and thus the newer photon is shaken by the occurrence just as if it had brushed up against the earlier one.   Interference!   If a slot is closed, then the previous photon ctime paths are disturbed by the closing and no interference occurs when a newer photon comes along later. 

This has implications for high-speed particles with mass as well.  As they approach relativistic speeds, there is time and space distortion for these particles as well.  Electrons and even much heavier particles show diffraction patterns and also show interference patterns even when fired one at a time.  In their cases, the valley of ctime would not be as deep and possibly not persist as long, but space and time are warped just the same.  The interference of one particle with another at a later time may be just the same effect – an existence of a ctime in a not-quite null path left by one particle that disturbs one coming along later.  

An experiment might be constructed such that a paddle sweeps through the entire area where photon interference might occur.  The sweeps to occur between each photon emission.  Such an experiment  might prove this theory if the result is no interference pattern buildup over time when the paddle is used but interference does occur when the paddle is not in use.  I’m suggesting a simple paddle that is wide enough to span the multiple interference points and placed normal to the screen, a paddle that mechanically sweeps through and disturbs the ctimes so that no photon crosses another’s undisturbed ctime.  A paddle next to the slits will not do the trick, so I doubt that this experiment has been done before.  A paddle that only sweeps some of the crossing points would in effect blank out some of the interference pattern and not others.   A real test.

Copyright 2007 by James A. Tabb

Marietta, Ga.