New Physics (BSM) Archives - Perfectly Imperfect Mirrors

Solving the Mystery of High-Temperature Superconductors

Superconductors are incredible materials that can conduct electricity with absolutely zero energy loss. While traditional superconductors only work at extreme, deep-freeze temperatures, scientists have discovered “unconventional” superconductors that operate at much warmer temperatures. Understanding exactly how these unconventional materials work is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern physics, because the traditional rulebook (known as BCS theory) completely fails to explain them.

In this paper, we explore a new, alternative explanation called the “Chiral Electron-Hole” (CEH) pairing mechanism. To test if this new idea is correct, we acted as scientific detectives, re-examining highly detailed experimental data from previous studies. We looked specifically at the “energy fingerprints” of electrons (quasiparticle dispersion) inside these materials using a powerful imaging technique (ARPES).

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More about Thomas Gold’s Theory on Abiogenic Origins of Fossil Fuels

Thomas Gold, a maverick physicist without a PhD, proposed many bold and contrarian ideas and theories across many disciplines throughout his life. As the great physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in the foreword to Gold’s book The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels, “Gold’s theories are always original, always important, usually controversial — and usually right”. Probably, one of his most intriguing theories is about abiogenic origins of fossil fuels.

Conventional wisdom has it that oil and coal are remnants of ancient surface life that became buried and subjected to extremes of temperature and pressure. That is why we call them fossil fuels. However, Gold suggests that these deposits are not fossil fuels as widely believed, but the products of primordial hydrocarbons dating at least from the time of the Earth’s formation.

I am excited to see that Gold’s theory is in perfect agreement with my study on stellar nucleosynthesis under the new mirror matter theory (see my paper Neutron-mirror neutron oscillations in stars or a pop science essay in Chinese). In essence, the crust and core of a massive star at its late burning stage (just before it explodes as a supernova), is mainly made of oxygen and heavier elements (up to iron group), and rarely of any carbon. Carbon is actually made in the helium atmosphere (and possibly leftover helium in the thick O/Ne layer) via the so-called neutron-assisted triple alpha process (i.e., reactions of 2α+n→9Be and α+9Be→12C+n) when the crust and excessive neutrons are blasted away during a supernova explosion. The crust debris could trap some of newly made carbon along with hydrogen and helium in the atmosphere and eventually be captured by another forming star and become the solid cores of planets orbiting the star. When it cools down, hydrocarbon would be formed, even deep underneath the surface of a planet. Therefore, it is natural to see hydrocarbon in most of the planets if not all. It is also no wonder that anomalous amounts of helium and hydrogen gas have been found in association with petroleum deposits. Indeed, fossil fuels should be called cosmic or stellar fuels. They are not only providing energy in our modern society, but also probably the seeds of the first life on Earth.

Paper on new pairing mechanism for unconventional superconductivity is accepted for publication

My paper titled “New pairing mechanism via chiral electron–hole condensation for non-BCS superconductivity” has just been accepted for publication at J. Phys. Chem. Solids 193 (2024) 112148. Continue reading “Paper on new pairing mechanism for unconventional superconductivity is accepted for publication”

New chiral electron-hole pairing mechanism for non-BCS superconductivity

Motivated by the ideas from the NJS model and the concept of staged chiral quark condensation developed in mirror matter theory, I ventured into superconductivity and fortunately developed a novel microscopic pairing mechanism for non-BCS superconductivity. It took me the entire summer and more to reacquaint myself with BCS superconductivity and associated condensed matter physics and I have to immerse myself in the extensive literature on superconductivity accumulated over the past decades.

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Mirror Symmetry for New Physics beyond the Standard Model in 4D Spacetime

Finally, my most recent work on “Mirror Symmetry for New Physics beyond the Standard Model in 4D Spacetime” got published about a week ago in Symmetry 2023, 15(7), 1415. Unfortunately, it did not get much attention it deserves or as I hoped, in particular, no attention from any string theorists. I wish some string theorists will read it and continue to work on these exciting ideas.

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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A new milestone paper on mirror matter theory

After procrastinating for almost a year, I finally finished this paper. It is going to be recognized as a new milestone on mirror matter studies. In particular, amazing connections between string theory and new supersymmetric mirror models are established. Mirror symmetry as a fundamental concept is deeply examined. Based on mathematical results from string theory, we can finally put these mirror models on a firmer and self-consistent ground and can really explain an impressive list of puzzles in fundamental physics and cosmology. Without further ado, here it is:

Mirror symmetry for new physics beyond the Standard Model in 4D spacetime
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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.

New paper on first principles

I just tried to post my new paper of “First Principles of Consistent Physics” on arXiv.org. Unfortunately it was put on hold immediately and I then submitted it to the OSF eprint server. This is quite an exciting paper to me. It proposes new foundations and guiding principles on fundamental physics and cosmology based and improved upon my early blog “first principles of physics“. It should shed new light on further developments of the new mirror framework.

First principles of physics

The approach of first principles has been pursued in the development and history of physics. Ever since the establishment of the Standard Model of particle physics in 1970s, the idea of going after theory of everything has become popular as the latest approach of first principles among theoretical physicists for unifying all particles and interactions. However, we seem to live in a dynamic world as indicated, e.g., since the discovery of an expanding Universe and it is definitely at odds with the static picture of an ultimate unified theory for physics.

The dynamic picture tells us that the time reversal symmetry has to be broken and it has to be the first (broken) symmetry. Whatever first principles we propose have to be able to naturally break this symmetry first in the very beginning. And there is no reason why the current 4-dimensional spacetime, in particular, its dimensions can’t be dynamic. It is probably more natural to consider that spacetime has evolved in a dimension-by-dimension way.

First of all, we propose and summarize the three first principles as follows:

A measurable finite physical world is assumed.
The quantum version of the variation principle in terms of Feynman’s path integral formalism is applied.
Spacetime emerges via dimensional phase transitions (i.e., first time dimension and then space dimensions got inflated).