Something like that, yes. It doesn't just happen in the middle of nowhere. The photon needs to have enough energy to create the mass of the pair (energy/mass equivalence), and there needs to be something else nearby involved in the event (typically a nucleus of some kind) to allow momentum to be conserved.HexHammer said:So far as I understand it, a photon can split up and create particles with matter, even though the photon is massless, yes?
They can't. They don't really have a place that they occupy at all until they are measured, that is until they interact with something. When they do that, they cannot react elsewhere, so no measuring a photon in two different places.So if a photon can be more places at the same time
Photons, electrons and positrons are all very detectable, not dark at all.So how is this not Dark Matter?
HexHammer said:a photon can split up and create particles with matter, even though the photon is massless, yes?
How are particles of light not dark matter? Really?HexHammer said:So how is this not Dark Matter?
That sounds like it conflicts with the concept of "superposition" where the photon in the famous "double slit experiment" can go through both slits, through either or none at the same time?Halc said:They can't. They don't really have a place that they occupy at all until they are measured, that is until they interact with something. When they do that, they cannot react elsewhere, so no measuring a photon in two different places.
The man in the video says that gamma ray photons has enough energy to do it?PeterDonis said:One photon can't, because there is no way for one massless photon to split into two particles each with nonzero rest mass that will conserve both energy and momentum.
Two photons can collide and produce two particles each with nonzero rest mass, but the energy density has to be very, very high (as in, the kind of energy density that only existed in the very early universe) for this to occur with appreciable frequency.
Superposition isn't "actually being in two places", so a photon, lacking a measured position, does not actually go specifically through either slit. In some realist interpretations, the photon does have a position unmeasured, and actually goes through one slit or the other, and still isn't in two places at once.HexHammer said:That sounds like it conflicts with the concept of "superposition" where the photon in the famous "double slit experiment" can go through both slits, through either or none at the same time?
HexHammer said:The man in the video
Virtual particles are short-lived particles that spontaneously appear and disappear in the vacuum of space. They are not observable directly, but their effects can be seen in certain physical phenomena.
Virtual particles are not related to dark matter. Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter that is thought to make up a significant portion of the mass in the universe, while virtual particles are a phenomenon that occurs within the vacuum of space.
No, virtual particles cannot be directly detected. They exist for such a short amount of time that their effects cannot be measured directly. However, their presence can be inferred through their effects on other particles and physical phenomena.
Some people may mistakenly think that virtual particles could be dark matter because both are invisible and difficult to detect. However, virtual particles are a well-understood phenomenon in quantum mechanics, while dark matter is still a theoretical concept that has yet to be fully understood or observed.
Scientists have been able to study and understand virtual particles through experiments and mathematical models. These particles have specific properties that are different from what is expected of dark matter. Additionally, the existence of dark matter has been inferred through its gravitational effects on visible matter, while virtual particles do not have a significant gravitational impact.