13 research outputs found
Trialogue on the number of fundamental constants
This paper consists of three separate articles on the number of fundamental
dimensionful constants in physics. We started our debate in summer 1992 on the
terrace of the famous CERN cafeteria. In the summer of 2001 we returned to the
subject to find that our views still diverged and decided to explain our
current positions. LBO develops the traditional approach with three constants,
GV argues in favor of at most two (within superstring theory), while MJD
advocates zero.Comment: Version appearing in JHEP; 31 pages late
Could Only Fermions Be Elementary?
In standard Poincare and anti de Sitter SO(2,3) invariant theories,
antiparticles are related to negative energy solutions of covariant equations
while independent positive energy unitary irreducible representations (UIRs) of
the symmetry group are used for describing both a particle and its
antiparticle. Such an approach cannot be applied in de Sitter SO(1,4) invariant
theory. We argue that it would be more natural to require that (*) one UIR
should describe a particle and its antiparticle simultaneously. This would
automatically explain the existence of antiparticles and show that a particle
and its antiparticle are different states of the same object. If (*) is adopted
then among the above groups only the SO(1,4) one can be a candidate for
constructing elementary particle theory. It is shown that UIRs of the SO(1,4)
group can be interpreted in the framework of (*) and cannot be interpreted in
the standard way. By quantizing such UIRs and requiring that the energy should
be positive in the Poincare approximation, we conclude that i) elementary
particles can be only fermions. It is also shown that ii) C invariance is not
exact even in the free massive theory and iii) elementary particles cannot be
neutral. This gives a natural explanation of the fact that all observed neutral
states are bosons.Comment: The paper is considerably revised and the following results are
added: in the SO(1,4) invariant theory i) the C invariance is not exact even
for free massive particles; ii) neutral particles cannot be elementar
Experimental search for muonic photons
We report new limits on the production of muonic photons in the CERN neutrino beam. The results are based on the analysis of neutrino production of dimuons in the CHARM II detector. A CL limit on the coupling constant of muonic photons, is derived for a muon neutrino mass in the range eV. This improves the limit obtained from a precision measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon by a factor from 8 to 4