A Conjectural Preon Theory and its Implications

Scientific Paper
Title	A Conjectural Preon Theory and its Implications
Read in full	Link to paper
Author(s)	Rupert Gerritsen
Keywords	Preons, Neutrinos, Gravity, Time, Dimensionality, Mass, Big Bang, Electromagnetism
Published	2012
No. of pages	21

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Abstract

A Conjectural Preon Theory and its Implications begins with some key assumptions, that there is only one type of neutrino and that neutrinos form bound state composite particles to create the known loss mass fermions and bosons, which then form mesons and nucleons. Each particle is assigned a neutrino number and mathematical relations between these is explored. A quanta of mass is identified at around 70 MeV with variants according to spin and charge. A formula for deriving the mass of particles is then developed from this and applied, with good approximations (< 1%) achieved for the mass of known particles. The theory proposes that gravity arises from resonance of the neutrino bonds with the neutrino itself being the graviton. It further suggests the origin of time and dimensionality arises because of the neutrino bonds and changes in these in respect to each other, registering as changes in energy states communicated by photons. It suggests that photons are affected by gravity and that gravitational time dilation arises because of this, in effect the speed of light is affected by gravitational fields. The theory posits an explanation for the origin of electomagnestism, as constructive intereference in the electron as a bound state fermion-boson coupling. Furthermore the theory provides an explanation for the origin of mass and the mass-energy relationship. Finally it speculates on possible implications for the Big Bang and some other phenomena.

Overview

Published as a short monograph by Batavia Online Publishing in Canberra in 2012, Rupert Gerritsen's A Conjectural Preon Theory and its Implications proposes that every subatomic particle except one is a bound state built from a single constituent: the neutrino and its antiparticle. Gerritsen's opening complaint against the Standard Model is that its list of sixteen "fundamental" particles plus eight gluon types "bears a resemblance to the list of elements at the time when Mendeleev developed the periodic table" — a proliferation which usually signals an undiscovered layer of structure. He adds the Model's arbitrary constants, its silence on the mass spectrum of quarks and leptons, its failure to explain the number of generations, and (writing before the July 2012 announcement) the unconfirmed Higgs mechanism and undetected graviton.

The proposal is a preon scheme in the tradition of Pati and Salam, Harari, Shupe and Yershov, but with an unusually austere starting point. Its six founding propositions are: there is one fundamental particle, the neutrino, plus its antiparticle; there is only one type of neutrino; neutrinos have no mass; the Pauli exclusion principle does not apply to neutrinos; the spin of a composite is the sum of its constituents' spins; and the frame of reference for each constituent's spin is the other constituents. From these Gerritsen builds a combinatorial table of particles, extracts a linear mass–composition relation, identifies a mass quantum near 70 MeV, and extends the picture to gravity, time, dimensionality and the origin of the Big Bang. Quarks, colour charge and gluons are dispensed with entirely; the photon becomes the only gauge boson, and the neutrino itself becomes the graviton.

The argument

Building particles from neutrinos

Table 1 of the paper enumerates permutations of neutrinos (assigned J = +½) and antineutrinos (J = −½) subject to the conventions J ≤ 1, Q = 0 or +1, conservation of J and Q, additive spin, and the rule that the photon does not combine with other particles. Each particle receives a neutrino number (υ#) equal to its constituent count. Two aligned neutrinos give the photon (υ# = 2); a neutrino–antineutrino pair gives the Z⁰; three constituents give the electron and positron (υ# = 3, J = ±½, Q = ±1); four give three distinct states, a neutral "pure mass" particle M⁰, a spin-zero W^±, and a spin-one W*^±; five give the muon; six the pions. The scheme is strictly additive — "each generation being formed by the incorporation of an additional neutrino."

Gerritsen is candid that M⁰, the spin-zero W and a vector charged pion are not recognised particles, and he predicts them. Only W*^± matches a known gauge boson structurally. He argues the Z⁰ of his table has spin zero rather than one because the Z always decays to a fermion–antifermion pair, whose summed spin under his convention is zero. Each proposition is then defended in turn: the three neutrino flavours are reinterpreted as one neutrino carrying different quantised momenta imparted by the decay that produced it, with oscillations arising from momentum exchange between neutrinos; masslessness is argued from the MINOS velocity measurement and from the difficulty a massive neutrino poses for Special Relativity; and exclusion is waived on the ground that neutrinos "do not have charge or occupy space." The wave–particle duality of the photon becomes the resonance of the bond between its two neutrinos, so that "the appearance of a particle may depend upon how one 'looks' at it" — a claim Gerritsen extends to the alternative structural forms listed throughout his tables. He notes that de Broglie proposed a neutrino theory of light in 1932, and that Pryce's polarisation objection has been answered by Kronig, Perkins and by Greenberg and Wightman in the one-dimensional case; if neutrinos are one-dimensional, a two-neutrino photon is two-dimensional.

Mesons, nucleons and the neutrino number–mass relation

Table 2 assigns compositions to the mesons and nucleons on the basis of decay modes, relative mass, structural consistency and the mathematical relations that emerge. The neutral pion is Z⁰M⁰ (υ# 6), the charged pion Z⁰W^±, kaons υ# 10, the eta 12, rho and omega 14, the vector kaons and η′ 18, the phi 22. The proton is μ⁺μ⁻μ⁺ with υ# 15, and the neutron is that plus a W*⁻, υ# 19.

The empirical core of the paper is a series of nine graphs plotting particle mass against υ#. Gerritsen finds that particles fall on straight lines with correlation coefficients R² between 0.9997 and 1: the neutrino–muon–neutral-pion sequence gives m = 26.829371υ# − 27.105952; the Z⁰–muon–charged-pion sequence m = 34.967923υ# − 69.785; the pion–eta–eta-prime sequence m = 68.56695υ# − 275.93353 with R² = 1; and similarly for electron–kaon–omega, pion–kaon–proton, and Z–eta–neutron. He observes that every identified particle up to the phi lies on a line with at least two others, that the tau falls on the Z–muon–pion line at υ# 53, and that the most common particles sit at intersections of two or more lines — which he reads as evidence for 'building blocks' with υ#s of 1–5 below the pions and 3, 4, 5, 6 or multiples thereof above them.

The mass quantum and the mass formula

Two of these lines intersect near υ# = 3.962, at 68.760 MeV, and substituting υ# = 4 into the applicable equations yields 68.760, 70.087 and 71.487 MeV, designated M_q-1, M_q-2 and M_q-3 and identified with M⁰, W^± and W*^±. Mass is then computed as

P_m = C_m + xM_q

the summed mass of the component particles plus an integer multiple of one mass quantum. Worked examples give 137.520 MeV for the neutral pion (observed 134.9766), 140.174 for the charged pion (139.570), 491.012 for the charged kaon (493.677), 496.489 and 497.264 for the two neutral kaons (497.614), an average 549.587 for the eta (547.853), 776.898 and 775.381 for the rho, 782.162 for the omega (782.650), 935.814 for the proton (938.2723) and 938.541 for the neutron (939.5656). Gerritsen reports the deviation as under 1% in every case except the neutral pion at 1.88%, attributing the residual to "the dynamics involved in the composition of each particle and the calculation of mass using simple linear equations." The mass–energy relation is explained by the decay of M⁰ = Z⁰Z⁰: its four constituents, on annihilation, regroup not as two Z⁰s but as two photons, giving a mechanism for E = mc².

Forces, gravity, time and space

Gravity is said to arise from resonances of the bonds between constituent neutrinos, with the neutrino itself mediating the resonance — that is, being the graviton. Because the photon is itself a neutrino bond, it is subject to gravity through its effective mass m = E/c², which Gerritsen offers as the cause of gravitational lensing and of black holes whose escape velocity exceeds c. The curvature of the Einstein field equations is treated as the appearance produced by this direct action of gravity on light rather than as a geometric primitive. Neutrino bonds also set the fundamental dimensionality of space, their length being equated with the Planck length 1.616199×10⁻³⁵ m; time arises from changes in the differential relations between these dimensions, communicated by photons, so that where gravity slows light it slows time — recovering Einstein's 1911 expression for the gravitational potential dependence of c.

Electromagnetism is attributed to an interference effect within the electron, taken to be a fermion (neutrino) bound to a boson (Z⁰). Weak interactions are reinterpreted: W*^± and Z⁰ are not exchanged gauge bosons but structural units of bound states which are simply revealed when a composite decays — a neutron sheds its W*⁻, which then decays to electron and antineutrino, with the proton retaining most of the mass. The strong interaction becomes the binding of three muons, defended by noting that the only three non-decaying fermions — neutrino, electron, proton — have υ#s of 1, 3 and 15, all three-body-like; the absence of a stable υ# 9 tri-electron is attributed to charge repulsion, and the proton is refined to an electron plus two positrons "buffered by the three neutral Z⁰s," with its alternative form ⁰π⁺e⁺⁰π⁻ invoked to evade the exclusion problem. The residual nuclear force becomes a resonance between shared constituents, "analogous to van der Waals forces between the electromagnetic components of neutral atoms," or simple pion exchange in the alternative form. Only the photon remains as an exchanged gauge boson, replacing eight gluons.

Predictions and speculations

The paper predicts the existence of a spin-zero W^± and a neutral M⁰ near the stated masses, and of a vector charged pion. Three closing speculations are offered as speculations: that the electron-shell capacities 2, 6, 10, 14, 18 match the υ#s of the photon/Z, pions, kaons, rho/omega and vector kaons, possibly indicating a quantisation of space; that if gravitational pressure in a sufficiently dense object breaks the neutrino bonds, gravity fails and all the neutrinos are released catastrophically — a possible origin of the Big Bang; and that the arrow of time may follow from the helicity of the neutrino.

Assessment

What is genuinely attractive here is the ambition of the reduction and the fact that Gerritsen puts a number on it. Most preon papers stop at a combinatorial table; this one converts the table into a testable arithmetic claim — that particle mass is linear in constituent count — and then tests it against the measured spectrum, reporting sub-1% agreement across a dozen mesons and both nucleons. The paper is also unusually honest about its own gaps: unrecognised particles are flagged as unrecognised and turned into explicit predictions rather than buried, the anomalies in the rho and omega structures are acknowledged before being patched, and the closing section is clearly labelled speculation. The neutrino theory of light has a real pedigree, and Gerritsen engages the standard Pryce polarisation objection with the actual literature (Kronig, Perkins, Greenberg and Wightman) rather than waving it away.

The difficulties are severe and mostly structural. The mass agreement is far weaker evidence than it appears, because υ# is not measured — it is assigned, partly on the basis of "relative mass" and "the mathematical relationships that emerge." With one free integer per particle and a choice of three quanta and an integer multiplier x, the formula P_m = C_m + xM_q has enough freedom to fit almost any spectrum; the correlation coefficients of exactly 1 on three-point lines are a symptom of this rather than a confirmation, since three points chosen to lie on a line will. No independent quantity is predicted from a υ# assigned on any grounds other than mass. Nor is any dynamical mechanism given for the linearity: nothing in the theory says why adding one massless neutrino should add ~27, ~35, ~69 or ~89 MeV depending on which sequence one is following, and the coexistence of six different slopes for the same additive operation is left unexplained.

Several claims conflict directly with measurement. The insistence that neutrinos are massless and of one type is contradicted by the very oscillation experiments Gerritsen cites: Super-Kamiokande's atmospheric zenith-angle deficit and SNO's neutral-current measurement of the total solar neutrino flux establish flavour change, which requires a non-zero mass-squared difference; the MINOS velocity result he invokes constrains the mass to be small, not zero, and a "quantised momentum" imparted at production cannot produce the observed L/E-dependent oscillation pattern, since momentum is fixed at the source while the deficit varies with baseline. The identification of the neutrino with the graviton conflicts with spin: a spin-½ mediator cannot generate a universally attractive static force, and the near-simultaneous arrival of GW170817 with its gamma-ray counterpart pins gravitational-wave speed to c within about one part in 10¹⁵ while supernova SN 1987A neutrinos are not gravitons in any observed sense. Suspending the Pauli exclusion principle for the fundamental constituent while the composites are required to obey spin-statistics is asserted, not derived, and the proton's structure has to be rescued twice — once by adding "buffering" Z⁰s, once by switching to an "alternative form" — which illustrates how much the dual-identity device is being asked to absorb. Finally, the paper's most direct falsifiable point has been settled against it: the Higgs boson it treats as unvalidated was announced at CERN the same year, and the M⁰, spin-zero W^± and vector charged pion it predicts have not been found in the intervening decade, though it is to Gerritsen's credit that he named them clearly enough for that to be checkable.

See also

• Rupert Gerritsen
• Neutrino
• Photon
• Electron
• Positron
• Proton
• Neutron
• Muon
• Quark
• Standard Model
• Mass
• Spin
• Louis de Broglie
• Gravitational Lensing
• Big Bang