Questions on reversed Coulomb force.

[RGClark]

Questions on reversed "Coulomb" force.

I've seen that with Moeller scattering, the attractive force between
the nucleus and the electron can become repulsive at high relativistic
velocities of the electron. What are the energies required for this to
occur?
Is there an analogous result between electrons, i.e., in electron-
electron scattering, where the repulsive force between them switches
to become attractive at high energies?
The strong nuclear force operates as an attractive force even between
protons at distances of the size of the nucleus, about 10^-15 m. This
works even for protons beamed towards a nucleus at short distances,
not necessarily already contained within a common nucleus.
But shouldn't this distance be frame dependent? If the protons are
aimed toward a nucleus but to be a longer distance away, shouldn't
they regard the distance to be Lorentz contracted at sufficiently high
velocity?
If the proton beam say was aimed to skirt the outside of an atoms
electron cloud at about 10^-10 m away from the nucleus, shouldn't a
Lorentz contraction factor of 10^5 cause the protons to regard the
distance to be within the 10^-15 distance to the nucleus at which the
strong force is active?
The proton has a rest energy of close to 1 GeV. So a Lorentz factor
of 10^5 would correspond to giving the proton an energy of 100 Tera
eV. Not even the LHC is expected to get this high. However, Fermilab
gets up to 1 TeV. If the proton beam was aimed to come within 10^-12 m
of the nucleus, where the strong force would not be expected to
operate, then Lorentz contraction should make the distance appear as
10^-15 m to the protons, where the strong force would operate. Has
such an effect been seen?

Bob Clark

 

[AndyW]

,

Thank you for your questions about the reversed "Coulomb" force. This phenomenon is known as the Coulomb repulsion, and it occurs when the attractive Coulomb force between the nucleus and the electron becomes repulsive at high relativistic velocities of the electron. The energy required for this to occur is dependent on the mass and velocity of the electron, as well as the distance between the electron and the nucleus.

In terms of electron-electron scattering, there is indeed an analogous result where the repulsive force between them can switch to become attractive at high energies. This is known as the van der Waals force, which is a weak intermolecular attraction that can become significant at short distances and high energies.

The strong nuclear force, also known as the strong force, is indeed an attractive force between protons at distances of the size of the nucleus. This force operates even at short distances, not necessarily within a common nucleus. However, as you mentioned, the distance can be frame dependent due to the Lorentz contraction factor at high velocities. This means that the protons may perceive the distance to be shorter and therefore within the range of the strong force.

In terms of experiments, the effects of Lorentz contraction on the strong force have been observed in high-energy particle collisions. For example, in experiments at Fermilab, the protons are accelerated to energies of up to 1 TeV, which corresponds to a Lorentz factor of 10^5. This means that the protons may perceive distances to be shorter and therefore within the range of the strong force, resulting in the observation of the strong force at shorter distances than expected.

In conclusion, the effects of Lorentz contraction on the strong force have been observed in experiments, and the energy required for the Coulomb repulsion to occur is dependent on the mass and velocity of the electron. I hope this helps to answer your questions. Please let me know if you have any further inquiries.

 

[sir-pinski]

, thank you for your question regarding the reversed Coulomb force. In Moeller scattering, the attractive force between the nucleus and electron can become repulsive at high relativistic velocities of the electron. This occurs when the electron's velocity is close to the speed of light, and the Coulomb force is reversed due to the effects of relativity.

To answer your first question, the energy required for this to occur depends on the specific system and the velocity of the electron. In general, the energy needed for the Coulomb force to reverse can be calculated using the relativistic formula for energy, E = mc^2 / √(1-v^2/c^2), where m is the mass of the electron, v is its velocity, and c is the speed of light.

As for your second question about electron-electron scattering, there is indeed an analogous result. At high energies, the repulsive force between electrons can switch to become attractive. This is due to the exchange of virtual photons between the electrons, which can lead to an attractive force.

Regarding the strong nuclear force, it is indeed frame dependent. The distance between protons may appear different depending on the frame of reference. However, the strong nuclear force is a fundamental force that is independent of the frame of reference. This means that even if the distance between protons appears different, the strong force will still act between them.

In terms of your last question, there have been experiments conducted to observe the effects of Lorentz contraction on the strong nuclear force. For example, at Fermilab, experiments have been conducted using high-energy proton beams to study the structure of nucleons. These experiments have shown that at high energies, the strong force becomes weaker and the nucleons appear to be more spread out. However, the strong force still operates at these distances.

I hope this helps answer your questions about the reversed Coulomb force and its effects on different particles. Thank you for your interest in this topic.