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Virtual Particle's Violate Causality?


ps3

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No.

 

Interestingly in Quantum Field Theory you can show that particles with positive energy always must move forwards in time in order to preserve causality. This seems fair enough, but perhaps more oddly, you can also show that particles of negative energy must flow backwards in time to preserve causality (weird huh?).

 

This is actually where antiparticles come from since a negative energy particle moving backwards in time is actually identical to a positive energy antiparticle moving forwards in time. This is called the Feynman-Stueckleberg interpretation.

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All of it falls within the bounds of the uncertainty principle. Virtual particles can violate rules all they want as long as they don't get caught, so to speak. :P Regarding causality, information isn't transmitted at superluminal speeds even by virtual particles with negative energies as noted by Severian.

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First link: you misread it. "The virtual particle didn't "transmit" any information that I didn't have already; it is useless as a means of faster-than-light communication." That translates as: doesn't violate causality.

 

Second Link:

"First off a disclaimer: I'm not a particle physicist, and although I have a basic understanding of Quantum Field Theory, I can by no means claim to be an expert on virtual particles"

 

The "violation" he then quotes is the HUP.

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so it can last infinitly?

 

It can last as near to infinity as the particle's energy is near zero.

 

[math]\Delta E \Delta t \leq \hbar[/math] Where [math]E[/math] is energy, [math]t[/math] is duration, and [math]\hbar[/math] is Dirac's constant.

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The probability of decay is proportional to the Breit-Wigner distribution:

 

[math]\frac{m \Gamma}{\left(E^2-|\vec{p}|^2-m^2 \right)^2 + m^2 \Gamma^2}[/math]

 

where [math]\Gamma[/math] is the particle width and I have neglected the [math]c[/math]'s.

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The probability of decay is proportional to the Breit-Wigner distribution:

 

[math]\frac{m \Gamma}{\left(E^2-|\vec{p}|^2-m^2 \right)^2 + m^2 \Gamma^2}[/math]

 

where [math]\Gamma[/math] is the particle width and I have neglected the [math]c[/math]'s.

 

what does this all mean?

 

i was told by a friend that causality is violated but since we can't see it happening it cannot affect us.is this true?

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