Is there a quanta of rest mass? say multiples of electron mass?

[bananan]

charge is quantized. what about rest mass?

do particles of the standard model have rest mass that is quantized, and comes in quantas of mass, with i imagine the electron being the lowest that have rest mass (the neutrino does not appearl to have a rest mass)

do particles of the standard model that have rest mass, have mass that are multiples of electron 9.11 * 10-31kg?

?

 

[mathman]

Neutrinos have non-zero mass, much smaller than electrons. There is no current theory that mass is quantized, but such an idea might come out of string theory.

 

[Astronuc]

Matter is quantized, and mass is a property of matter.

 

[bananan]

Neutrinos have non-zero mass, much smaller than electrons. There is no current theory that mass is quantized, but such an idea might come out of string theory.

So are the particles of the standard model whole-interger multiples of the mass of a neutrino?

 

[bananan]

Matter is quantized, and mass is a property of matter.

So are the particles of the standard model whole-interger multiples of the mass of a neutrino?

 

[ZapperZ]

There are no existing Standard Model theory that mass is "quantized", whatever that means. A "neutrino" is not the basic building blocks of nature (do you know of any Standard Model theory that describes a a hadron as composing of multiple neutrinos?). Besides, which neutrino are you referring to? The three types of neutrinos do not all have the same mass, or in the case of the tau neutrino, it isn't expected to have the same mass as the electron neutrino, or else we would have measured it as easily.

Zz.

 

[bananan]

There are no existing Standard Model theory that mass is "quantized", whatever that means. A "neutrino" is not the basic building blocks of nature (do you know of any Standard Model theory that describes a a hadron as composing of multiple neutrinos?). Besides, which neutrino are you referring to? The three types of neutrinos do not all have the same mass, or in the case of the tau neutrino, it isn't expected to have the same mass as the electron neutrino, or else we would have measured it as easily.

Zz.

I am not suggesting that the neutrino is the basic building block of nature. I am merely speculating whether the rest mass of elementary particles of the standard model can be considered whole interger multiples of some fundamental value, for example, the rest mass of the electron neutrino.

 

[ZapperZ]

I am not suggesting that the neutrino is the basic building block of nature. I am merely speculating whether the rest mass of elementary particles of the standard model can be considered whole interger multiples of some fundamental value, for example, the rest mass of the electron neutrino.

But if it isn't the building blocks, then what possible coincidence can there be that other particles would be multiple integers of it?

In either case, it is moot to argue this, since the Standard Model clearly does not even hint that this is the case. Furthermore, if the Higgs are ever discovered, we then have our "mechanism" for the existence of mass.

Zz.

 

[bananan]

But if it isn't the building blocks, then what possible coincidence can there be that other particles would be multiple integers of it?

In either case, it is moot to argue this, since the Standard Model clearly does not even hint that this is the case. Furthermore, if the Higgs are ever discovered, we then have our "mechanism" for the existence of mass.

Zz.

based on your reasoning would you say quarks are the building blocks of electrons?

 

[ZapperZ]

based on your reasoning would you say quarks are the building blocks of electrons?

Er... why would I say such a thing? Was there a paper, or a discovery, that somehow showed that leptons undergo strong interaction?

Is there a reason why you are following this line? Presumably, you have done at least some background reading on the Standard Model. Did you find something that somehow suggested the nature of mass and "mass quantization" here? I mean, there has to be a valid reason why you're mixing up lepton and hadrons.

Zz.

 

[bananan]

Er... why would I say such a thing? Was there a paper, or a discovery, that somehow showed that leptons undergo strong interaction?

Is there a reason why you are following this line? Presumably, you have done at least some background reading on the Standard Model. Did you find something that somehow suggested the nature of mass and "mass quantization" here? I mean, there has to be a valid reason why you're mixing up lepton and hadrons.

Zz.

would u agree all charge of the SM is quantized as whole-interger multiples of e/3 units?
down, bottom and strange quarks have e/3 as their electric charge.

since an electron is 3 times the electric charge as down, bottom and strange quarks is an electron made of 3 down, bottom and strange quarks, according to your reasoning?

i am not saying that electrons and quarks are made of electron neutroninos, only whether their masses (whether it arises from the higgs field or soem other mechanism) are whole-interger multiples of the neutrino mass.

 

[ZapperZ]

would u agree all charge of the SM is quantized as whole-interger multiples of e/3 units?
down, bottom and strange quarks have e/3 as their electric charge.

since an electron is 3 times the electric charge as down, bottom and strange quarks is an electron made of 3 down, bottom and strange quarks, according to your reasoning?

Er.. what reasoning?

The ORIGIN of charge is still a research-front area, and highly a mystery at this point. I never claim of anything making up anything. You did.

If an electron is made up of quarks, then you have a horrendous time to explain why electrons do not participate in strong interactions. Saying such a thing CONTRADICTS all current experimental evidence. So what do you buy more, a made-up model or empirical evidence? You may also want to look at the mass of the individual quarks and see if they add up to your electron.

i am not saying that electrons and quarks are made of electron neutroninos, only whether their masses (whether it arises from the higgs field or soem other mechanism) are whole-interger multiples of the neutrino mass.

In the particle data book (available freely online), are the masses of ALL the known elementary particles. You are welcome to check for yourself if you can get "whole integer multiples" from there, that is, if you think it makes any sense to claim that, for example, 1.6726e(-27) is actually "whole integer multiples" of 9.1095e-31.

Zz.

 

[arivero]

actually, some mainstream theories p

 

[ZapperZ]

actually, some mainstream theories p

"some mainstream theories" is a oxymoron.

Zz.

 

[arivero]

http://pdg.lbl.gov/2006/reviews/gutsrpp.pdf

sorry I was using a PDA onscreen keyboard

 

[arivero]

anyway the point is that in GUT theories the mass is quantised, but precision limits the trick to the top bottom and tau.

As for the neutrino, manstream thinking is that it is the algebraic composition of two masses, dirac and majorana.

 

[ZapperZ]

anyway the point is that in GUT theories the mass is quantised, but precision limits the trick to the top bottom and tau.

As for the neutrino, manstream thinking is that it is the algebraic composition of two masses, dirac and majorana.

But this is like me claiming that the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity in "mainstream" thinking is "phonons" and leave it at that, when in reality, it isn't settled, nor unambiguously verified!

I have chatted with people doing neutrino and muon studies here (you can't help talking to people when they're just down the hall from you) on the possible nature of the "mass constituents" in the lepton family, including neutrinos and muons (they play a major role in MINOS and now the building of NOvA). They said there are no one single accepted ideas on that, especially when the mixing angle between the tau and muon neutrinos are still up in the air.

So my conclusion here is that these are more speculations than "theories", and they're certainly not "mainstream" or generally considered to be on the right track because there are just nothing empirical to back them.

Zz.

 

[arivero]

Well the point really was not about if GUT theories are mainstream or not, I am sorry my PDA touchscreen stressed it by cutting my message in the middle. The point is that quantification of matter, if it happens, happens at some scale, and you can not expect to see the integer pattern when all the masses are run down to low energy.

The quantisation does not come from subconstituents, it comes usually from mathematical arguments, in the same way that the fact of having a electron charge three times the charge of one quark does not tell anything about subconstituents but a lot about the needs of anomaly cancellation.

In the specific case of GUT, mases become equal, or integer multiples one another, due to the need of having a common fit into some group representations.

 

[arivero]

as for the neutrinos, I'd say that the seesaw mechanism (the aforementioned algebraic composition) is considered mainstream nowadays.

But OK, this is your remark about phonons, I see.

 

[xionium]

Planck masses as quanta

Has anyone thought of the fact that according to superstring theory, when the temperature approaches the Planck temperature (10^32 K) (or equivalently, as the energy available approaches the Planck energy [10^19 GeV]), all particles have masses which are integral multiples of the Planck mass? It is only at very low energies (<~10^16 GeV) that various symmetries are spontaneously broken and particle masses very slightly above zero Planck masses appear. Since length and time are known to be quantized by superstring theory, one cannot have an event horizon smaller than the smallest unit of length, the Planck length. The mass of this Planck-scale black hole is one Planck mass, the smallest mass a black hole can have.

 

[Severian]

To answer the original queastion (about whether or not all masses are some multiple of the nuetrino mass) I would have to say we don't know. The masses are just not well enough measured, and the mass of the neutrinos is so low, that it cannot be ruled out.

However, I would be very surprised if this turned out to be the case. There is absolutely no reason in the SM for this to be, and if it did turn out to be the case we should really have an explanation for it. Then again, we don't have any explanation for quantization of charge in lumps of e/3 either...