Is there a way to figure out the escape velocity of virtual particles?

What causes them to surpass their escape velocity?why?

What exactly are virtual particles?

I started a thread on this same subject on another forum, but no one seemed to know what exactly virtual particles are. I learned that they were involved in quantum field theory, and they were mathematical solutions for something. :help: :feedback:

quantum fluctuations of the vacuum energy ( 1/2:h::lcomega: ) if I recall correctly.

 

what do you mean by surpass escape velocity though?

I said that to avoid saying "how do virtual particles escape the escape velocity of a black hole?" But, there is a slight descrepency with the question, as you can see. Vitrual particles only appear to escape the escape velocity (is there a synnonym for "escape"??) of a black hole. So is there a particular point were the particles can escape?

yeap, I thought that is what you were getting at. It just depends on the energy of the particle. Ignoring QM (since QM and black holes don't mix) a particle can escape from a distance arbitrarily close, but not on, the event horizon if it has enough energy. However, so the theory goes (Hawking I believe), black holes emit like black bodies, so they will have a characteristic black body type spectrum of emission.

Ahh, very interesting. So virtual particles are high energy particles, right? They do need a lot of energy to travel at near superluminal speeds.

 

What exactly is a virtual particle though? Someone on another forum said that they did not exist.

I believe the virtual particles to which you are referring are a particle and its anti-particle being spontaneously created from nothing due to the vacuum fluctuations Radical Edward mentioned. They don't exist for very long.

they aren't all high energy particles, just some of them are. as faf said, they are just normal particle/antiparticle pairs that spontaneously come about as a result of fluctuations in the vacuum energy. fluctuations in the same vacuum energy are also responsible for so called spontaneous emission.

Why do antiparticles annihilate each other?

they don't. when a particle and it's corresponding antiparticle collide, they are both annihilated, usually turning into gamma radiation, or perhaps other particles, depending on the interaction.

What causes them to collide?

Do the alpha particles they emit classify them as nuclear particles?