Category: Experiments

An invited review: neutron lifetime anomaly and mirror matter theory

It still feels like yesterday. Almost exactly four years ago, also around Chinese New Year, I finished my first paper (or to be exact, two) on the new mirror matter theory. Now I just finished my first invited review paper, which exactly details the original motivations on solving the puzzles of neutron lifetime in my first published paper. It feels like I just completed the circle. So many thanks for Dr. Ben Grinstein’s invitation. I’ve been trying to write a review on mirror matter theory and related experiments and observations for a long time. But it never came through. Ben’s invitation has really pushed me to finish this review paper earlier. It is not the full review paper I have imagined, but still a very important part of it. It focuses on the unique perspectives in the analysis of the neutron lifetime anomaly and the CKM unitarity issue, which have been mostly overlooked by the mainstream. It does not present the full picture and details of mirror matter theory. Instead, it gives the details of the phenomenological $n-n’$ oscillation model, and presents exactly how it can explain the above puzzles and how we can test its unique predictions in laboratory experiments.

Here is the paper: Neutron lifetime anomaly and mirror matter theory

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First experimental work to test my mirror oscillation model

The first experimental paper by BESIII collaboration (motivated under new mirror oscillation model) has just been published: Search for invisible decays of the Λ baryon. It was the first direct test of my idea on neutral hadron oscillations. It gives an upper limit of the invisible decay branching fraction for the Λ baryon: <7.4×10−5 , which is consistent with my model. Unfortunately, it is not sensitive enough yet to reach the level of my prediction in the new model: 4.4×10−7. I hope that more experimental works will be coming on invisible decays of other hadrons like K0L and K0S. I wish that people in the business of neutron lifetime measurements could have done much more convincing tests earlier.

Future of the new mirror matter theory

The new mirror matter theory has only a very rough framework with many of its aspects waiting to be greatly improved and further developed as a nascent research direction. In particular, its mathematical rigor and foundations have yet to be established. Relevant new mathematical tools and approaches are desired to be implemented in the new theory. Theoretical efforts in the past several decades on fundamental physics, especially on topological quantum field theory, string theory, and quantum gravity, need to be merged into the new theoretical framework under the guidance of the newly proposed first principles. Most importantly, the neutral hadron oscillation effects predicted by the new theory are ready to be experimentally tested in laboratory, and it is time for more observation and simulation works in astronomy and cosmology under the consideration of the new theory to be conducted.

As presented below, I’d like to say a few words on the future direction of the new theory to interested mathematicians and physicists.

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Invisible decays and equivalence of CP violation and mirror symmetry breaking scales

COVID-19 pandemic has hindered my scientific production quite a bit. But finally my new paper on “invisible decays of neutral hadrons” is finished though it should have been done months ago. It provides precise predictions on invisible decay branching fractions of long-lived neutral hadrons that can be readily measured at existing collider facilities. The idea is that CP violation can be considered as a direct result of spontaneous mirror symmetry breaking at staged quark condensation (e.g., at temperatures of 100GeV – 100 MeV in the early Universe). For a neutral kaon system, it means that the CP and mirror breaking scales, i.e., the mixing strength and mass splitting parameters should be the same.

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Corrections to recent media coverage on the mirror matter theory

One piece of news regarding mirror matter studies was published in June, this year by New Scientist as a cover story titled “We’ve seen signs of a mirror-image universe that is touching our own”. I was interviewed and also quoted in this article. But I was not informed that the article was actually centered about Leah Broussard’s experiment at Oak Ridge national laboratory. As a matter of fact, I was not aware of it at all. The ironic part is that her experiment, as far as I understand, will not uncover any new physics if my new model is correct while I was quoted in the article like a theorist endorsing this and other similar experiments.

I was not aware of this article until one of my Chinese friends showed me the Chinese version of the article. Then I read the full English version from my institution’s library (the online version is not free). The article could have been a good one had the author replaced the experiments with, or at least focused on the ones discussed in the APS april meeting this year. Here are the links to the talks on neutron lifetime experiments at the meeting: session C14 and session D14. I wish I could have attended that meeting.

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Converting dark matter search programs to mirror matter studies

In light of the newly developed model (M3 and SM3 ), if further confirmed, most effort of current dark matter search will be destined to failures. Indeed, there is nothing to detect if there is no direct interaction, however weak, between normal particles and dark (mirror) particles. This makes all the Weakly-Interacting-Massive-Particle-like (WIMP-like) or axion search programs to no avail. However, the advancement of the detection technology with the past efforts including those for the detection of neutrinos could be rekindled to a new life for the studies of mirror matter.

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Consistent origin of matter-antimatter imbalance and dark matter in the early universe

This is an excerpt for media people or science journalists. A good story could be written from my two newly published papers (out of six). My personal goal would be to wake up some of the most relevant experimentalists. This should be a win-win situation and I hope it won’t fall on deaf ears. Here is the plain-English summary of the two published works (arXiv:1902.01837 & arXiv:1904.03835):

Matter-antimatter asymmetry and dark matter as two of the biggest puzzles in the Universe can be consistently and quantitatively understood under a new mirror-matter theory. The new theory assumes that there exist two parallel sectors of particles that share nothing but gravity and it leads to neutral particle oscillations because of slightly broken mirror symmetry. Specifically, neutron and kaon oscillations with new understanding of quark condensation and phase transition processes in the early Universe provide the necessary mechanism. The idea is that kaon oscillations first create a potential amount of matter-antimatter asymmetry at the stage of strange quark condensation. A new topological transition process (coined “quarkiton”) can then preserve the generated matter-antimatter asymmetry. Without such an asymmetry, we would not have lived in a universe of galaxies and stars. In the end, neutron oscillations convert most of the matter to mirror matter which corresponds to the dark matter we have observed today. Under the same framework, another so-called U(1) or strong CP problem that has baffled particle physicists for almost half a century is understood as well.

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Call for experimentalists to conduct laboratory mirror-matter tests

Technology is ready for various laboratory tests on the new mirror-matter model. The predicted new physics could be discovered right around the corner. If you are an experimental physicist, you may be interested in conducting such tests. See arXiv:1906.10262 for details or the following for a brief summary:

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