Does the gluon ignore relativity?
The force so rigid it does not bend with spacetime!
The massless yet mighty gluon [1], also known as the carrier of strong nuclear force, was given its adhesive name “for their glue-like properties and ability to keep the nucleus together“ [2] We have a good understanding of many properties of the strong nuclear force, including the force required to break it as well as the energy released by such a process.
For example nuclear power is produced by overcoming the strong nuclear force between hadrons typically by using other high energy radiation to disrupt unstable isotopes of heavy elements (like Uranium 235). Nuclear weapons are an extreme version of this process by using plastic explosives to super-compress an unstable isotope to produce a runaway fission reaction. And with nuclear fusion, one uses plastic explosive to ignite a small fission bomb which provides the force needed to compress an exotic light element (lithium-6 deuteride) into heavier atoms in turn releasing vast amounts of energy.
However, throughout all of these massively energetic interactions, none of them actually impact any gluons! Although it is the source of the strong unclear force that holds nuclei together (or needs to be overcome to create new nuclei), the gluon itself resides within the protons and neutrons, the individual hadrons of the nucleus. On all nuclear energy or weapon processes, the exact number of protons and neutrons still exist unaltered.
So what can overcome the direct bond of a gluon? High energy particle accelerators (Large Hadron Colliders) like those found at CERN are designed to collide hadrons at near-light velocities which is sufficient to overwhelm the confinement of quarks separating them from their gluons. This also occurs in nature through high energy particle bombardment in the upper atmosphere, and in stellar explosions (which will be discussed later)
Consideration of these factors, the following are some of the questions generated from this discussion link):
- Why doesn’t length contraction seem to impact the ability of particle accelerators to collide particles?
- What prevents neutron stars from collapsing into black holes?
- Do the results from Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) experiments, showing minimal change in the proton’s structure at high energies, suggest a form of “rigidity” in the overall size of hadrons?
- The behavior of electromagnetic form factors in elastic electron-proton scattering at high momentum transfer shows a slower fall-off than expected. Is this evidence of a rigid internal structure?
- Does the observation of the EMC effect, where quark distributions in nucleons are modified within nuclei, and its plateau in heavy nuclei, imply a limit to the compression or deformation of hadrons?
Do hadrons experience length contraction?
Length contraction is considered a given in relativity, but the mechanism is typically described as a directional bending of space without any more detailed model. However, with various issues with literalized spacetime including but not limited to compatibility with quantum interactions at “foamy” scales, a more exhaustive model needs to be defined.
It is my hypothesis that, treating each fundamental particle on an atom individually. And considering each subatomic particle is limited to a ‘c’ velocity, then we can rationalize length contraction while making other predictions about relativistic particle distortions.
To explain, if one considers electron orbits or probability clouds as being the area or range of motion that the electron might be found, by necessity, an atom moving, lets say, 1/2 light speed will only be able to move in that vector at theoretically 1/2 light speed. Therefore, it is predicted simply by ‘c’ speed limits and generally observed that an atom at high velocity will contract its electron clouds in the vector of motion.
However, the ‘c’ velocity limit is cumulative for a particle, which means that at sufficiently high x velocity the y vector must be relatively diminished. And since the breadth of an electron cloud and it’s distance from the nucleus is dependent on the velocity of the electron (centripetal force), this reduction of velocity relative to a rest state must begin to shrink the y dimension of the atom as well.
Per this hypothesis, there is little perpendicular contraction until substantially close to ‘c’. A chart of a hypothetical trend follows where I suggest such a trend. Even the quantum wave function for the subatomic particles and the atom as a whole should be smaller in the y dimension simply from the change in energy potential. That we have not accelerated complete atomic masses to notable relativistic speeds, in particular with the intention of directly validating atomic length contraction, there is no other theory but a simplified application of relativity without acknowledging the behavior of individual subatomic components.
That being said, one would expect hadrons individually to betray length contraction properties. At their smaller scale, it is prohibitive to formulate a method of observation to directly verify length contraction in the x vector. However, per my hypothesis, there should still be contraction effect in the y vector at notably close velocities to ‘c’. At 0.999999991c, one would expect the y diameter to be tiny, not just from the classical model I am proposing, but also due to the relative energy level of the particle altering the wavefront diameter.
Although I am making a bit of a leap due to omission, it does not appear that energy level, or hadron velocity, is noted as a factor in determining probability of a particle collision. This seems strange to me as if the hadron does not experience predicted y vector contraction at near-’c’ velocity. It may suggest that the hadron maintains an absolute dimension to the strong force boundary which is mediated by its gluons.
Why don’t neutron stars collapse into black holes?
Not unlike the considerations made for length contraction, neutron stars have an immense amount of time dilation in a very small diameter. Like 10 suns worth of matter in a spherical area of 10 kilometers in diameter time dilation. The density is so tight that there are not electrons to distance the hadrons. It is potentially the highest density of matter possible, and spinning with a surface velocity as much as 0.25c. Between the length contraction and the minuscule gravitational potential, they still do not cross the level of event horizon. A sudden and vast catastrophic violation of hadron structure, like the collision of multiple neutron stars, is required to allow the sub-hadronic particles to achieve the required density for black hole formation.
So why is it so difficult for a black hole to form even in such extremely dilated space? I hypothesize that gluons maintain their bond length in spite of relativistic effect. Even when the motion of quarks is inhibited by relativity constraints, the gluon keeps the boundaries of the atomic strong force at the same absolute metric.
Other evidences…
…as suggested in the remaining questions listed here and in this article illustrate other deviations from theory that imply different hadronic behavior under extreme energies than a simplistic relativity interpretation predicts. Each deviation from theory should not receive an exception or be explained away, but addressed head-on with the intention of sincere falsification.
In short, I encourage falsification of my own hypotheses on this matter and look forward to debate or collaboration on ways to test the various possibilities to determine which is true in the most scenarios and at all scales.
