How much force might an electron withstand?

[bkelly13]

TL;DR

How much force might any elementary element withstand? Electron, Quark, or Lepton.

This is a thought experiment. It cannot be performed, but maybe the thoughts it produces might be useful.

Imagine we have some tweezers that can grab a single electron. Or quark, or lepton. Imagine we can apply as much force to that electron as we choose. How much force might that electron withstand? How many newtons of force on that one single particle?

As we near its limit would it flatten out?

Imagine we exert more force upon it that it can withstand. What would happen? I imagine it would translate into energy. What are your thoughts?

 

[256bits]

TL;DR: How much force might any elementary element withstand? Electron, Quark, or Lepton.

As we near its limit would it flatten out?

In a way the electron would flatten out as at the condition of being subjected to extreme pressure, the electron would go relativistic and experience length contraction along the direction of travel. As the tweezers squeeze more and more the electron is confined to a smaller and smaller space, which means only higher and higher frequencies will fit within the space, higher frequencies in turn meaning the kinetic energy of the electron increases in step to compensate the external pressure.
That might be a way to describe electron degeneracy pressure.

And we are in luck that nature has provided the tweezers in the form of a white dwarf, the remains of an average star after it has exhausted its H and other elemental fuel supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_degeneracy_pressure

 

[Matterwave]

The physics governing electrons is quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. There, the everyday Newtonian notion of force is not very useful.

Furthermore, the electron is an elementary point particle with no known spatial extent in QFT. There is no volume to flatten.

Unfortunately, this question is ill posed and there is no answer within current theory.

In a way the electron would flatten out as at the condition of being subjected to extreme pressure, the electron would go relativistic and experience length contraction along the direction of travel.

There's no length contraction since there's no starting length. A point has no spatial extent.

And we are in luck that nature has provided the tweezers in the form of a white dwarf, the remains of an average star after it has exhausted its H and other elemental fuel supply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_degeneracy_pressure

This seems fully unrelated to the OPs question. Electron degeneracy arises from the Pauli exclusion principle which says no two electrons can be in the same state (incl. spin) at once. It is a property of a multi-particle wave function. It is not a property of a single electron.

 

[bkelly13]

Hmmm. I probably should have selected a quark rather than an electron as the example. Still, a few searches indicate that we cannot find a specific size for a quark. Rather like an electron. As I understand this, we either lack the knowledge or tools to check the size of them, or, they change their state whenever we try to measure them. So maybe no one has an answer.

Still, there is a larger purpose to my question. Electrons and quarks have some physical properties. I take that as meaning they can be subject to physical pressure. Expand the topic to a black hole. The environment in there must be extreme. We don’t understand what it is, but I suspect we can say extreme.

We believe we have detected black holes with the size of 40 billion solar masses. The environment inside of the must be extreme. But they exist. Move the scale up. Imagine a black hole with a size of billions of Milky Way Galaxies. Seems to me that the conditions inside would be far more extreme.

I am guessing, but suspect there is an upper limit for the size of a black hole. Go to billions of Milky Way Galaxies in size. At some point the environment in there would be so extreme, matter simply could not exist. My thought is that it would all translate to energy. All that energy in a relatively small space. That would be The Big Bang.

 

[Matterwave]

The quark is also an elementary particle, just like an electron so switching from electron to quark does nothing to your argument.

The rest of your post seems to be pure personal speculation.

 

[bkelly13]

Yes, it is that. I would like to here other thoughts on this concept.

 

[PeroK]

Yes, it is that. I would like to here other thoughts on this concept.

Personal speculation is not allowed on this forum.

 

[Nugatory]

Electrons and quarks have some physical properties. I take that as meaning they can be subject to physical pressure.

That would make sense if electrons (and quarks and other elementary particles) were little objects like beads or grains of sand except a lot smaller. But they aren’t, so it doesn’t.

The concept of pressure only makes sense for things that have non-zero volume: pressure is a force trying to reduce the volume of an object, and the internal structure of that object resisting the force. But electrons don’t have a volume. If we were to attempt to squeeze an electron between the tips of your magical tweezers, the tips would just meet and and press on each other; the electron isn’t doing anything to keep them apart and the pressure is applied to the tweezer tips.
(Be aware that the word “magical” is doing a lot of work here).

 

[Nugatory]

The environment inside of the must be extreme. But they exist. Move the scale up. Imagine a black hole with a size of billions of Milky Way Galaxies. Seems to me that the conditions inside would be far more extreme.

Actually it works the other way around. The bigger the black hole, the less extreme the conditions at and inside the event horizon. For example, an object that would be spaghettified by a solar mass black hole won’t be spaghettified at the same distance from a supermassive black hole,

I am guessing, but suspect there is an upper limit for the size of a black hole. Go to billions of Milky Way Galaxies in size. At some point the environment in there would be so extreme, matter simply could not exist.

There’s no matter inside any black hole of any size. It’s all vacuum, in the sense that the Schwarzschild solution that both predicts and describes black holes is a vacuum solution.

 

[256bits]

There's no length contraction since there's no starting length. A point has no spatial extent.

Is that experimental observation or mathematical concept? ie point object. There should at least be an upper limit as to the spacial extent of the 'hard shell' proper. QFT treats the electron as having no internal structure, so point like would be fine for the field lines to converge onto.

The field lines are one aspect that makes an electron an electron. Without , the particle is something else. A moving electron had its field contracted in the direction of motion, and in this context the moving electron, with its field, appears to be 'pancaked', since we measure the electron via its field.

Explaln please how the electron can be modelled under certain condtions of condensed matter, the mathematical and experimental separation of electron properties into the quasiparticles spinon, the orbiton, and the holon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinon

This seems fully unrelated to the OPs question. Electron degeneracy arises from the Pauli exclusion principle which says no two electrons can be in the same state (incl. spin) at once. It is a property of a multi-particle wave function. It is not a property of a single electron.

Nevetheless, a single electron is confined to its state and cannot jump to another state as those states are all occupied by other electrons. The single electron through the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle thus has a determination on its momentum . Unless there is an Unobtanium I am not aware of, the sea of electrons is analagous to the squeezing tweezers, the pressure from the sea of electrons on the single electron being provided by gravitational field of the white dwarf.

 

[Nugatory]

but I suspect we can say extreme…

Seems to me…

I am guessing…

My thought is…

That approach doesn’t work when you’re starting from incorrect assumptions, and unfortunately that happens a lot because so much of the non-serious popular writing about relativity and quantum physics is oversimplified to the point of being wrong.

There really is no substitute for real textbooks to establish a solid base. You might try starting with Taylor and Wheeler’s “Spacetime Physics” (first edition is free online), then Sean Carroll’s “No-Nonsense Introduction to General Relativity”, which will set you up for the insights articles here that @PeterDonis has written on the Schwarzschild solution. We can help you over the hard spots if you get stuck.

Also, please take note of @PeroK comment above. The forum rules don’t allow personal speculation of the “Seems to me…” variety, precisely because that approach doesn’t work. We’ve cut you some slack here, but please do remember: Physics Forums is for helping people understand the physics we already have, not developing new physics.

 

[256bits]

the tips would just meet and and press on each other; the electron isn’t doing anything to keep them apart and the pressure is applied to the tweezer tips.

Confining the electron to a smaller space would increase its momentum.
I fail to see why that would not happen.

Edit: Please disregard. I posted that much too quickly and have to retract.

 

[pines-demon]

This questions is speculation and you have not showed effort (showed what you have found so far).

Confining an electron into a small spaces would make its momentum and energy increase making it harder and harder to confine further, it will eventually lead to the creation of more particles in order to stop such a force. Going further still it would lead to the creation of a black hole.

 

[Baluncore]

Imagine we have some tweezers that can grab a single electron. Or quark, or lepton. Imagine we can apply as much force to that electron as we choose. How much force might that electron withstand? How many newtons of force on that one single particle?

Look at the force as the repulsion between two electrons.
The charge on the electron, Qe = 1.6e-19 coulomb.
Coulomb's constant, Ck = 8.987551787e9
Take the electron separation as the diameter of a proton, r ≈ 1.72e-15 metre.
Take two electrons alone in space, separated by that distance.
The repulsive force between them is, F = Ck * Qe^2 / r^2 = 78.0 newton.
Something must give, they will not remain together for very long.

 

[Ben vdP]

In a star when the pressure becomes to high the electrons join the protons to become neutrons.
At that point the electrons are already moving a fraction away from the speed of light.
Before that point the electrons have been pushing back as a consequence of the Pauli exclusion principle
in which the Heisenberg uncertainty relationship plays a role (as also pointed out in earlier note).
And before that they have been pushing back with ordinary gas pressure.

You cannot squeeze a single electron as you can squeeze a classical object. That is because an electron is not a (classical) material object. It is more pictured as a field without having substance but still having properties and able to interact with forces. And that may have been put way to simple.

You could try to squeeze an electron with EM fields or using lasers. Access energy will most likely lead to the creation of photon pairs or other elementaries. Trying to pull could have similar effect.

 

[Matterwave]

Is that experimental observation or mathematical concept? ie point object. There should at least be an upper limit as to the spacial extent of the 'hard shell' proper.

Experimentation can't reach 0 so my statement, strictly speaking, was a theoretical one. However, we don't have any experiments that has ever measured a "size for the electron", only upper bounds, so I see no reason to attribute to it a classical notion of size.

The OPs question seemed to suggest they view the electron as a little ball with spatial extent and so did your answer saying that the electron would get length contracted. I want to remove that misconception.

The field lines are one aspect that makes an electron an electron. Without , the particle is something else. A moving electron had its field contracted in the direction of motion, and in this context the moving electron, with its field, appears to be 'pancaked', since we measure the electron via its field.

This is presuming a lot more than the original question or answer brought. The electromagnetic field transforms via Lorentz transformation of the EM field tensor. I see no reason this transformation should be connected with the ordinary concept of "size".

Explaln please how the electron can be modelled under certain condtions of condensed matter, the mathematical and experimental separation of electron properties into the quasiparticles spinon, the orbiton, and the holon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinon

I see no connection between this and the OPs question. Are you simply asking a separate question? If so, you should perhaps start a new thread?

Nevetheless, a single electron is confined to its state and cannot jump to another state as those states are all occupied by other electrons.

It can not go to a lower energy state that is already taken. It could jump to higher energy states if given energy.

The single electron through the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle thus has a determination on its momentum .

The HUP doesn't "determine" a momentum. It gives the lower bound of the variance of momentum. It can be used only heuristically to guess at a bound on the momentum of a particle confined to a small space if you identify the variance with the momentum itself. But this is a heuristic argument.

Unless there is an Unobtanium I am not aware of, the sea of electrons is analagous to the squeezing tweezers,

I suppose if you read the OPs question extremely loosely you could arrive here. But that is not the way I read OPs question.

the pressure from the sea of electrons on the single electron being provided by gravitational field of the white dwarf.

The electron degeneracy pressure arises from, as the name suggests, electron degeneracy. It is the manifestation of Fermi-Dirac statistics in a macroscopic thermodynamical quantity. The keyword here is macroscopic. There is no "pressure on a single electron".