Particles Accelerate Without a Push

Discovery of Subatomic Particles – Induced to Speed up to the Speed of light

A team of researchers from MIT and Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology have come up with a discovery of some subatomic particles which can be induced to speed up by themselves to the speed of light without any application of external forces and the same principle could be used to extend the lifetime of some unstable isotopes or probably open up new avenues of research in particle physics. This discovery is the outcome of a theoretical analysis and not experiment, though if true could change the way we think on the motion of fundamental particles.

The findings were published in the journal - Nature Physics by Ido Kaminer, MIT post doc together with four other colleagues at the Technion. The result which are based on fresh analysis of the Dirac equations describes the relativistic behaviour of fundamental particles, such as electrons with regards to wave structure and by checking with wave structure, a quirk of quantum mechanics the cause of how particles could behave as if they are waves, it was indicated by the team, that there is a possibility to imbue electrons with unusual as well as counter-intuitive characteristics.

Phase Mask – To Develop Hologram

As per the researchers, these characteristics could be forced on the particles with the use of something known as phase mask which is used to develop hologram by creating useful interference though at a tiny scale it was possible, their model indicate that one of the new particle qualities have the ability to `self – accelerate’ in a way which is indistinguishable from how an electron could behave in a magnetic field. Here the particle would not actually be violating the laws of physics since the effect actually would see the particles also expanding in size as it moves.

This self-acceleration does not actually violate any physical laws, such as conservation of momentum because at the same time the particles tend to accelerate and spreads spatially in the opposite direction. Kaminer states that `the electron’s wave packet is not just accelerating, it also tends to expand and there is some part of it that compensates. It is referred to the tail of the wave packet and will go backward so the total momentum will be conserved. There is another part of the wave packet that is paying the price for the main parts’ acceleration’.

Self-Acceleration – To Produce Effects Connected with Relativity Theory

According to further analysis, it seems that this self-acceleration tends to produce effects which are connected with relativity theory and is a variation on the dilation of time as well as contraction of space, effects of which have been predicted by Albert Einstein to occur whenever objects move close to the speed of light.

Example of Einsteins’ famous twin paradox is that one twin travelling at high speed in a rocket tends to age more slowly than the other twin who remained on Earth. The next step for the researcher is to turn theory into practices and working at MIT, the team could use an electron microscope fitted with a special designed phase mask which could produce 1,000 times higher resolution than those needed to create modern hologram. Thus they would be capable of accelerating an electron without the need of doing anything to it.