At the lowest level, the physical universe is made up of matter particles (fermions) and force carrying quanta (bosons). Fermions include leptons (electron, muon, tau and their neutrinos) and quarks (u, d, c, s, t, b). Force carrying bosons include photons, gluons, Z, W.
Matter particles (fermions) are spin=1/2 particles.
Force carrying quanta (bosons) are spin=1 particles.
Higgs particle is the only spin=0 particle in nature.
What about dark matter? Dark matter particles must also be spin=1/2 particles, right? We don’t know! In fact, we don’t know whether “dark matter” is made up of particles at all. Secondly, dark matter could be photon-like (spin=1) and still manifest a gravitational effect. Spin=1/2 property is not necessary for the gravitational effect.
Higgs particle interacts with all fermions (electron, muon, tau, u, d, c, s, t, b). The neutrino is a special case. Neutrinos are fermions but Higgs-neutrino interaction is a big unknown.
The quantum mechanical wavefunction of a spin=1/2 particle is represented by a mathematical object known as the spinor which requires 2 full rotations to come back to its original state. This behavior can also be represented by a Mobius strip. I mentioned this in an earlier blogpost.
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of a closed loop, whether a circle, or a Mobius strip, is confinement. The confinement mechanisms of physics are not fully understood.
Just one example: quark confinement within protons and neutrons. The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to David J. Gross, H. David Politzer, Frank Wilczek for making progress, but quark confinement is still a big mystery.
“After 50 years of trying, we still lack a satisfactory understanding of quark confinement in quantum chromodynamics. The quest continues. The current status is assessed at this event organized by the Simons Collaboration on Confinement and QCD Strings.” – John Preskill
The discussion Preskill mentions took place at the 2023 summer school at IAS (Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton), with topic Understanding Confinement.
In my opinion, there is even a bigger mystery than quark confinement in physics: fermion formation. How does a localized charge in the form of an electron come into being? The Quantum Field Theory (QFT) side-steps this question by hypothesizing an “electron field” and claiming that an electron is just a ripple in the electron field. This answer is not satisfactory.
Remember fermions are always created in fermion-antifermion pairs as in electron-positron pair creation. This happened at a large scale at the beginning of the physical universe and keeps happening in the centers of stars and in our physics laboratories under carefully prepared conditions. Fermions can also appear as products of decay processes. In the visible universe there is a huge imbalance between the numbers of electrons and positrons. But, in the beginning, equal number of electrons and positrons must have been formed. Let’s put aside this mystery, let’s focus on the stability of the electron.
Electrons do not decay. When they collide with positrons they turn into photons but this is highly unlikely in our surroundings because there are not many positrons around (ignoring positrons emitted by bananas, positrons from cosmic rays, or the positrons emitted by chemicals used in PET – positron emission tomography).
Key word is stability. Electrons are the most stable particles in nature. What is the cause of this stability? Confinement. This is a very special type of confinement.
Considering the fact that all matter particles exhibit spin=1/2 property it is quite possible that confinement reaches its zenith when the confinement action is countered by a quantum mechanical effect. We know this quantum mechanical effect as spin=1/2 property.
In [1], I argue that electric charge is necessary for the initiation of the spin=1/2 property. In other words, the matter forming confinement mechanism manifests charge first.
The geometrical representation of spin=1/2 property as Mobius strip helps with the visualization of the maximum confinement aspect. It is as if the “flow” goes into the “other side” and comes back and this is symbolized by the Mobius strip. For more on the “2 sides of a fermion” see [1] as well as this article. Why maximum confinement? Because more confinement forces the fermion turn to the other side, but it cannot stay there either, so it turns back. This keeps going indefinitely.
There is a similar narrative in the discussions of the Higgs mechanism but there is no mention of maximum confinement in those discussions. Higgs field supposedly mixes 4 components of the Dirac spinor and makes the chirality of those spinor components oscillate.
There is another quantum mechanical effect that opposes confinement: weak nuclear force (the force carried by W and Z bosons).
The spin=1/2 property opposes confinement and stops singularity formation. The weak nuclear force breaks confinement, breaks symmetries, makes particles decay or transform.
In other words, spin=1/2 property and the weak nuclear force together counter the singularity seeking confinement action of nature. The resultant (temporary equilibrium) which is long lasting in the case of electrons, is key to matter formation.
[1] https://www.academia.edu/71902886/Confinement_and_Liberation or
https://sureshemre.wordpress.com/confinement-and-liberation/
Suresh Emre
Renaissance Universal 