Quantum Theory

Hello forum, I was reading the below article about the Higgs boson decaying to fermions and I wanted to get your opinion. https://home.cern/about/updates/2013/11/atlas-sees-higgs-boson-decay-fermions. Is this article acurate? I know Photons and Gluons are out of the question but can other Bossons like Z or W decay into fermions too?

Clearly I need to get my hands on some good text books, and revise my maths before responding. I am getting too much from the internet and Wikipedia. Thank you very much for your response. I was commenting on your remark, my comment was not meant to start another discussion, sorry again. I think I have already started too many threads and don't wish to start a new one just yet. ( However this is not part of this thread, but worryingly might result in a new speculation in the future. I commented a few posts ago. Ref fermions and bosons having spin and space not. When a particle is destroyed it becomes a gamma ray. A fermion can therefore become a boson. In a…

Hello group, I was reading about positrons and in the wikipedia article there is this section: I started reading more about it and it is explained that: I thought that a fermion cannot create another fermion + it's oposite anti-fermion equivalent. It's the equivalent of disappearing.(at least at my current level of understanding). Can anyone help? Links used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron http://www.nbcnews.com/id/27998860/

I have read the basics along with the interferometer experiment & feel I'm still not understanding it fully. I understand measurement collapses the wave behavior, but I can't see how the photon can just pass through both slits or a beam splitter presumably as a wave of some sort. Wouldn't the interaction with the actual slits itself qualify as measurement & prevent the interference pattern? Why does it pass through two slits which is matter as a wave yet the actual impact/detection on screen (which is also matter) is a point? Does this have to do with the direct angle it hits the screen? If so this would seem to really mean that passing through the slit…

So if a quantum system is confined to a potential well of the right form it can "tunnel" to the other side with some probability. I've seen examples where that's expressed as the probability curve for finding the system in various states falls off as you move into the barrier, but still has a non-zero value on the other side. But if I've interpreted what I've read correctly, there would be no tunneling with an infinite potential barrier, because the curve goes to zero at the well-side of the barrier. Does this wind up having to do with the random energy fluctuations that arise from energy and time being conjugate variables? I could also imagine the system "climbing…

Is it ok to think of a field as passing through both slits when a single particle passes through; the particle field is always connected in both slits but can interfere when they reconnect the other side? I'm thinking like a flow of water passing around a rock both sides

I am starting this thread to support Mordred (+1) in assembly of a QFT summary manual. This idea is to keep the original thread pristine and rock solid by debating challenges, questions and suggestions here and only putting the results in the parent thread. To begin this I have a question about QFT and probability. How do they fit together and what is the role of probability in QFT?

A couple of weeks back Mordred posted a link to this paper in some thread or another: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4616.pdf I read it and have been mulling it over - I think it's causing my brain to "click" to some things that have previously been fuzzy for me. I'm going to summarize the new insights briefly in hopes that some kind folks can validate / correct me. So, what I'm getting from the paper is as follows: There are no "particles" per se - what we call particles are just certain excitations of this or that field. There's not just one field - there are quite a few (I believe someone said twenty-ish in some other thread). Like all wave phenomena, we c…

Someone said me that electrons and holes in graphene are separated spatially. What does it exactly mean?

As I've communicated in PMs with the OP, and further to Studiot's excellent historical summary, I would suggest that the wave model is neatly represented by Maxwell's equations, while the modern quantum particle model has nothing at all to do with classical corpuscles/particles, but rather photons are excitations of the quantized EM field ( in accordance with quantum field theory ). And while both are excellent models which help us make many valid predictions when applied appropriately, they both still have problems providing satisfactory answers in certain situations like the double slit.

How will the history of science look back on the time when the whole world chose not to recognize the biggest discovery because they didn't like the website that published the papers? Should the ringleaders of this anti-science campaign be punished? If so, in what sense is it appropriate to visit the sins of the father even unto the third and fourth generations?

I forgot that I already have an account. I'm sorry. You close posts in a hurry and banish accounts without explanation. Probably, it is necessary to make more patience.

I am an independent researcher and I need to review my article. In the past, I published an article entitled "The Nokton Theory", but I have received no advice or assistance. I therefore reviewed the document (version 2.0) and I wish a more important review by helping me from the community of ""https://figshare.com/articles/Nokton_theory/1549720". Here is the plan of the revision: We will look at the form of definitions and propositions from a mathematical point of view. We will look at the mathematical content of definitions and propositions. We will look at the total content from a physical point of view. We will look at the content from a languishing point of view. …

First off, kudos to Stringjunky for this great find: At 26:37, Sean Carroll mentions a spinning top which cannot revolve slower than a single 360 degree turn once in 100 mln times the age of the universe. Could someone explain the principal behind this? Where does this matter vs spacetime limitation come from?

I am an autodidact in need of guidance. I normally just pick out a bunch of books on the subject I plan on learning, but I have not been able to find the mathematical elements-just the theories. If anyone knows any textbooks I can find on the Internet that serves as a good introduction, I would appreciate the help.

I would just like to ask a question I have not been able to find an answer for. Do plants interfere with the waveform during a double slit experiment? Does chlorophyll effect a change equivalent to a measurement? I apologize in advance if the answer to this question is common wisdom.

Can quantum physics explain the reality? Our reality is constituted of matter, our brain is formed by matter that generates another matter with the thought. Then, thought produces matter. If this one is truth, can we change the reality? So, if we can change the reality, then exist infinite realities. Infinite realities-> parallel universes Maybe the matter is less real than we imagine, biologically our reality is only an elaboration of the brain that transforms electric signals into something to which we attribute an existence. Be clear, i'm not a physique. What do you thing about it?

I know , as per the definition mordred gave in another thread: it is that which has less than a quanta of energy, but any idea as to what the thought is behind calling them 'virtual'?

I'm trying to get a good feel for quantum information theory, and I'm wondering if this is on the right track: ===== Consider the simplest possible quantum system (say spin measurements, so there are just two possible outcomes). We can choose to measure spin in any direction, and we'll get "up" or "down." But that quantum system is capable of housing just one quantum bit of information, and by making the measurement against a chosen axis we "use up" that information holding ability. It now "remembers" that it's spin up or down for that axis, and that's the one bit so it can't have any information about a different orthogonal axis. So said another way, by makin…

So I was watching this video in an attempt to learn more about quantum mechanics. One thing that I have noticed in this one and in other videos is that they bring up the fact that during experiments the introduction and removal of observers affected the behavior of the electrons in the double slit experiment. What I have been pondering is that if we accept that we are not fully capable of properly perceiving the behavior of electrons due to our brains being wired to perceive reality on the scale that we currently live in, could it be possible that are brains are subconsciously interpreting data differently with the knowledge that we have introduced and removed an …

I've been perusing this paper the last couple of days: http://inspirehep.net/record/871519/files/arXiv%3A0809.2904.pdf The author seems to be taking issue with the whole notion of regarding the quanta of quantum fields as "particles." It's all a bit over my head, though, so I thought I'd see if that take on the paper is essentially correct. I'm also interested in comments on the paper in general. Does it seem to hold together, be pointing in a reasonable direction, and so on. I think he's saying that "particle like behavior" is a consequence of system wave functions becoming entangled with the environment's wave function (decoherence). And that because o…

Afternoon, folks. So, I've never been a fan of the Many Worlds Interpretation, and I've used several arguments against it over the years. But I'm not a "master physicist" by any means, and also I just haven't put the time specifically into that theory. So I do have some concern about whether I'm being fair or not. I'd like to list a couple of the arguments I've put forth in the past and let people here comment. ----- I have a feeling the first one is simple, and I don't even know if it's a "real" problem (probably not, or MWI would never have appeared in the first place). Every time the universe splits, we get a new copy of the universe. That's a lot of mass…

Is there some material which does have good electron conductivity and hole conductivity as well, but in the same time electron-hole recombination have to be prevented by some physical effect, for examply by a large band gap between conduction and valence bands? So, it does suppose to have a plenty of electrons in conduction band and plenty of holes in valence band, but a large band gap in betweeen?

Will the Many-Worlds-Interpretation of quantum mechanics and the existence of parallel universes ever be proven or debunked in the foreseeable future?

Three questions have recently been bothering me. If the universe originated (as I read on a lavatory wall somewhere) as a field of superimposed probabilities of all possible futures: 1) Would that field be necessarily bounded in any dimension before any 'actual' future began to unfold? 2) Is there any damning reason why the fundamental constants of our universe could not be quantum variables, initially indeterminate? 3) Would combinations of fundamental constants that led to eternally expanding, species diverse universes have more 'quantum votes' (ie a higher probability of manifesting themselves) due to their greater number of permutations than those c…