[General] Experimental tests for pivot

[John Williamson]

Dear Michael (and anyone else who may be interested),

This note relates to some possible effect of free pivot (p-vot) which may be observable if such stuff should exist physically. I started writing a quick reply to a question by Michael, but realized I needed to put a little more thought and work into it. Probably the thinking here should be worked out more completely into a paper (which, to make a decent job of, I would probably need collaboration with people competent on the experimental side of what is known from experiment in astrophysics).

The following note outlines what pivot is within my new extended theory of electromagnetism and goes on to discuss some of its possible cosmological experimental manifestations, if it should exist in a free state. If you cannot be bothered with a bunch of theory, read the experimental summary then skip to “experimental manifestations and applications” below. The experimental manifestations are jst the first that came to mind. There could be many many more. You should be able to think them for yourself though – once you get the basic idea of what free pivot can do. The note below is pretty speculative in many areas. It represents a “what if?” thinking session on may part, from the perspective of the new theory of extended electromagnetism, within the framework where free pivot is stable by itself (which need not be the case!). However, if it were, these are – off the top of my head – some of the things I would expect to happen.

There are many possible experimental manifestations, depending on the density and concentration of the pivot. Free pivot would be completely transparent to EM radiation, so the effects are, primarily, in its interaction with matter. In summary I would expect the signatures to be:

Experimental summary:

For low  pivot densities-
Slow heating of matter traversing it . .. possible radiation as low-energy heat
Integrated over large volumes: gravitational influence of systems

For medium pivot densities
Unexplained heating of matter as it traversed otherwise “empty” space.
Unexplained light emission from the same.
Slowing of material flows ( associated with relatively huge increases in temperature).

For high pivot densities
Gammas and particle showers

For high densities and high masses:
Explosions, supernovae, rapid and enormous heating, Quasars?

Theory outline and discussion

Briefly, for those of you who have not yet read or absorbed my papers, pivot is the scalar component of “stuff” in my new theory of extended electromagnetism. By contrast the electromagnetic field is the bi-vector part. If you want an analogy for pivot in terms of field – it acts a bit like a magnetic field, but one that transforms relativistically like a rest mass, not a field. In the theory, it can store energy at a point in space, which looks like stored energy at a point in space in any Lorentz frame. It is a Lorentz invariant and hence has the same value of stored energy in any frame. If you transform frame, the mass density will transform relativistically but the pivot will not – this is because the volume changes relativistically, not the stuff in the volume.
Another analogy then is that stuff in this “direction” is like a rest mass (but it does not constitute the whole “rest mass” of an elementary particle such as an electron) since anything bound by it, such as the electromagnetic field component in an electron will also be forced to transform in a similar way. I’m not going to ask you to read all my papers to continue –just point out some of the things I expect it to do, experimentally, if it can exist independently. This last qualification is important:  there is (anyway) very little free pivot locally in the solar system – it is strongly scavenged by matter – so it is not easily accessible experimentally. It may, or may not, be capable of existing independently. This is a similar argument as to whether the electromagnetic field can exist “independently” of charge, or charge independently of field and so on. 
The scalar part transforms as a Lorentz scalar. The vector part transforms as a 4-vector under Lorentz transformations, and may most conveniently be thought of as corresponding to a 4-vector potential. The 6 bi-vector components transform as the 6 components of the electromagnetic field, with the space-space triple corresponding to the magnetic and the space-time triple to the electric field.  It may seem obvious to say these transform as does the electromagnetic field (they do), but many folk seem to be under a complete misapprehension that the field transforms similarly to a 4-vector: it does not. For example the field transforms ONLY perpendicular to a Lorentz boost whereas the current transforms ONLY parallel to it. Forget thinking just in terms of the Lorentz gamma factor as the simple approach to relativity in undergraduate text-books – you need to go deeper than this to do everything right. The gamma factor is an important element, but it is not by any means the whole story. I am not going to enter into an argument about this as I have neither the time nor the energy to spare.  The effect is not peculiar to my theory but is well known, with good descriptions in more advanced text books. There is some discussion about this in Stephen’s thesis, but the proper field transformations are available in standard textbooks, such as Jackson, and I refer you to these. Be warned, there are many examples of supposed professionals in the field who have come a very public cropper by not getting this fully and though Jackson himself gets it (mostly) right where he discusses this relativistically, he takes shortcuts and there are inconsistencies elsewhere. See, also for example, the set of papers round the ”Boyer Rohrlich” controversy – and realize that the two eminent scholars cannot both be right! Ho-hum. 
The point is, that setting up the theory of electromagnetism within a proper (Dirac-Clifford) space time algebra means that all the elements transform properly relativistically. Now such things as energy densities, wherever they come from – mass or electric field squared, or magnetic field squared , or quantum mechanical wave function squared – does not matter – All quantities arising from such products are scalar and such physical quantities with this form all act as a scalar. That is they ALL act as matter in a theory incorporating relativity properly because they are all of the same form physically and mathematically. For example a field is not a scalar, but if you want to view (or measure!) it as an energy density then its square (which you need to take (and integrate) to get its energy density ACTS as a scalar. All of these things, abstracted in this way, are invariant under a Lorentz transformation. They all act like rest-mass. This means if you want to measure the mass of  everything bound in an elementary particle you need to take all its bits, whatever their base form, calculate the effect of that on the form of the measuring system (if it is a weighing scale it is the weight (force) engendered by that mass). It is doing that kind of proper calculation that leads you to the conclusion that “light is heavy”, for example. That is that, experimentally, a weighing scale will weigh the energy of light in a box as though it has mass E/c^2.
For field, QM wave-functions and so in this is well known and has been for a very long time (notwithstanding some heated discussions by some folk to the contrary). Richard’s correspondent is right – no one is interested in this stuff because it is well-known. Martin’s “light is heavy” paper was not written as a deep revelation to the world as the result was very well known amongst competent physicists already (For goodness sake - I had had a similar question about light in a box in an undergraduate exam, for example) . The motivation was that many colleagues did not seem to get it. Martin wrote this as an educational, pedagogic piece, not as a piece of original research. It is no good setting things up in word statements such as “light has no mass” (not true in one sense, true in another) and then starting from there. This is not only too trite and too simple – but is also just plain wrong.  One has to do these things properly – not just in words, but by actually understanding the physics expressing this properly in a form where one can do calculations and going through them yourself.

The scalar part in the new theory transforms as a Lorentz scalar. That is it acts like a rest-mass. In the new theory the component in this “direction” is involved, together with the electric field, in confining the complete system to a re-circulating configuration. It is not simply a sort of “glue” as in less sophisticated theories such as quantum chromodynamics, but acts only as part as a dynamical system in conjunction with, in particular, the electric field to provide a deviation in the “photon” direction for the Martin and my roly-poly photon model. The confining effect appears in product of the general field with its differential, just as in the well-known Lorentz force – but in the generalization available within the new theory. In fact the new confining force is not the only one there, of course, and the standard Lorentz force is in there too.  The electric field-pivot interaction is just the simplest new one which gives confinement. There are others which will too. The total number of combinatorics is over a hundred, if all the terms are expressed (of which the Lorentz force are four), so it may take a little time (a century or two) to fully work out all the details.

The primary new effect, as discussed in my papers, is that charge emerges, partly as a result of the electric field divergence acquiring a non-zero balancing term. Charge is not then basic, but (put simply) a result of the interaction of rest-mass and field at the root-energy level. I do not think this is the whole story for the full charge, as I said above, but it is one element of it in the new theory. Others remain to be worked out. Remember, when a new theory is proposed all of its solutions do not simply emerge at the same time. Maxwell proposed his theory, and yet did not immediately have access to all the solutions developed in the subsequent century and half. The situation with Maxwell is still developing: Martin, for example is developing new solutions within electromagnetism without starting by introducing a rest-mass pivot field. He is not the only one still making progress! If the extended theory of electromagnetism has any merit, it will take a lot to work it all out. This is not to say that nothing can be said. More and more can be said. This is only the beginning though.
Now a very public health warning (if that is not obvious): the fact that pivot exists in my new theory does not mean that it need exist independently in reality! This is not just because the theory may be wrong (it may!). The theory does not need pivot to exist alone, any more than it needs the 4-vector potential to exist alone (or even field to exist alone – as Al has argued for example). The 4-vector potential is widely thought (in the gauge theoretic sense), to be “non-physical”, since the fields (taking these for the moment to by physical and not derivative of “charge”) are invariant under a set of gauge transformations. Their physical reality, however, is suggested by the results of Aharonov Bohm type experiments – so this introduces a set of puzzles (or clues as I prefer to call them). The usual theoretical development ignores this, quite rightly as it un-necessarily complicates things in a lot of cases  and anyway no-one has found a way to introduce this fully. That is unless the present theory proves to do just that (as I hope). Also the “present theory” is not just one version of events, depending on which elements of it are expressed. Another example is the existence, or not, of magnetic monopoles (engendered by the quadrivector term in the new theory). They may, or may not be “expressed”. Their lack of expression may be that they are physically impossible for some deeper reason (for example the relation between charge conservation and gauge freedom), or it could be (as I believe) because they are strongly energy unfavourable. No matter- not expressed means not-observable either way – and hence for all practical purposes (FAPP!), not there in reality.
 
I’d just like to add there are good reasons to think that there is no way to incorporate a scalar field such as the pivot into Lagrangean field theoretic models, as this violates such things as local gauge invariance. This is the whole reason for going to such things as the Higgs mechanism. Martin and I think we have shown that one gets the right kind of functional form in the general invariant form of the general multivector directly, without needing to invoke a Higgs (it is a quartic- which may show a double-humped form). We are working on finalizing another paper about this. The theory is much more sophisticated than the Higgs model, but shares the property that it may well be wrong! 
There are also difficulties with setting up acceptable light-speed, properly Lorentz covariant wave-functions. My own view is that this is not a limitation of nature, but a limitation intrinsic to Lagrangean field theories in general (usually the sharpest tool in the field theoreticians box). A theoretical difficulty is not at all the same thing as a limitation in reality. The new theory does not proceed from an intermediate Lagrangean, but is, like the Newton and Maxwell laws which it incorporates, a direct set of equations of motion for the general case. The converse, however, is the case – and it is possible to generate a Lagrangean (in fact many different Lagrangeans, from the fundamental equations of motion.
I think I have managed to overcome both these technical difficulties with my new theory – in that the pivot field is a kind of gauge field, but a real, well-defined, dynamical one, and that I have managed to construct properly covariant wave functions (eq 21) using the elements of absolute relativity. Lots of other people have thought they had a way to crack these problems though – and all have so par proven inadequate when investigated in the facts. This may too! We will have to see if this one can be knocked over or not won’t we? It is, at least, immune to a couple of the major serial theory-killers here, which gives some hope.

Experimental manifestations and applications

So, coming back to what may conceivable BE observed in reality if the new theory is correct in some respects and if free pivot should exist, I have a few suggestions. I’m going to express these with a points system of certainty with 10 being completely certain and 1 being “maybe but not very likely”. As usual, nothing is ever completely certain (10 is for god!) so my maximum score will be the 9’s. Once you get the ideas and think through what pivot could and could not do – then you can make up many more experimental effects and applications yourself. It should be fun taking any experimental “mysteries” and looking at possible explanations through the prism of pivot as well.

The 9’s.
As it is fundamentally a (square) root-energy density the pivot could take either sign, with its square always corresponding to a positive rest-mass density. Positive sign corresponds to matter, negative to antimatter. Free pivot of either sign would constitute a background rest-mass density in space. These densities may be expected to be, in most circumstances, very low indeed – at least in the local solar system (or even the local galaxy). It is the integral of this very low density over very large volumes that may produce measurable gravitational effects – and only then if it is non-uniform (as Viv has argued). 
Pivot transforms as a Lorentz scalar, so it would just sit there, interacting only through gravitation if not close to a particle.
Free pivot would be extremely transparent to electromagnetic radiation. Far more transparent than any material. The only effect on circularly polarized light would be a slight circulation about the propagation direction. The effective refractive index would be very very close to unity. We are talking 1. 00000 …..  000001 where …..= “a lot”
The experimental effect is that one should observe with photons, over cosmological scales, the gravitational effects of a material dark to light: just as is observed.

Conventional (atomic) matter, on encountering low densities of free pivot, would simply incorporate it as low energy heat, “sweeping it up” in the process. This may be experimentally observable: it would simply manifest a matter heating over and above what one would expect from radiation. For example the “cold” shadowy side of a space-ship would warm up a bit more than one would otherwise expect, if free pivot were encountered.  I do not expect such effects to be present in the solar system, free pivot having been swept up long ago by passing matter, but it may be possible to engineer pivot ( I have suggested using counter-propagating cancelling lasers in one of my papers) and then to measure its existence in this way. Such experiments need to be done in space or in large high vacuum systems as matter will scavenge free pivot strongly.

A high density of pivot would manifest on encountering matter as a very rapid heating. Such encounters could produce anything from radiation, to light, to gamma rays to elementary particle showers – depending on the intensity of the interaction and the total mass-energy contained in the incident pivot. Unexpected heat, light, x-rays, gammas or particle showers would be the signatures of this.
Pivot, on encountering material, would make pretty much all its mass-energy immediately available. This means that if a high integral mass of this were swept suddenly by a high mass of well-confined material then there would be explosions, matter creation, intense particle emissions – a small bang!. A large amount of matter interaction with a large amount of pivot in a (very) strong gravitational potential would lead to something strongly resembling a Quasar.

Some 7’s

Photons, by themselves, will not incorporate pivot, atomic matter will, I am not entirely certain as to whether individual elementary particles, such as the electron, would or would not. At the simplest level, they should, but there may manifest conservation laws which suppresses or dis-allow such processes in practice, just as a free-electron cannot radiate in free space due to momentum and angular momentum conservation. 
The argument may seem at first sight fine for an electron traversing positive pivot (that sign associated with the negative charge of the electron): the electron would absorb the pivot, winding up slightly more tightly and gaining both mass and energy in the process. It would, however, from momentum conservation, also slow down, and these factors do not quite match unless momentum can be transferred to the pivot field (or another particle), which is not clear. The local pivot interaction is very strong, however, and nature may find a way. Note also that elementary particles are also much smaller than atoms, so even were they to sweep pivot the cross-section with which they did so would be orders of magnitude smaller.  An electron encountering negative pivot illustrates this even more clearly: if it were to absorb the pivot it should “wind down” leading to a lower energy (lower mass) electron. This does not conserve energy! So either it would have to emit energy (presumably as photons – which it cannot normally do as an isolated particle) or the absorption process would be “not allowed”. My guess is, at least to first order, this process is not allowed. Energy emission may, however, be accomplished by momentum transfer to the pivot field or another particle as above. Any such transfer of momentum to pivot may just flow away, or may look a bit like a particle-like discontinuity itself (a bit like a neutrino perhaps, but what about spin?). What is and is not “allowed” needs to be established by what is observed experimentally, if and when pivot is observed in the lab or in space. I’m just looking here at some of the extra possibilities for this scenario. If individual electrons and protons did gain energy from traversing a pivot field, when they encountered other particles they would have the possibility to  emit this – again as light or gammas or showers depending on how much they had picked up. Once again, this may be observable. A signature of this would be a slow electron arriving with a high (mass) energy.
Composite systems, such as alphas or hydrogen atoms would have the option of radiating any energy they picked up as low-energy heat (or anything else), of course, to conserve both energy and momentum. This is the reason I’m more confident about atomic matter sweeping up free pivot than individual particles.
Free pivot in free solar-system space may be rare – but one possibility for its creation may be the cancellation of large static fields, such as in the vicinity of the sun. Pivot has the same physical units as the magnetic field, but manifesting as a scalar rather than a bi-vector. Matter impinging on such stuff would absorb it and heat – providing a possible explanation for such things as the very high temperatures observed in the solar corona. Please forgive my ignorance here – there may be well-established effects which explain properly everything observed to date. This is not my field and I know very little! It is likely that this note should be expanded to a paper on experimental tests of the Williamson theory. If any or several of you have a set of experimental observations we can put together (especially with no other explanation) then we may have the basis, collectively, for a possible paper.
The earth or any other material body, incident on a pivot field would also heat on encountering free pivot, especial at the margins. As I said before though, I would expect little or no free pivot within the solar system as it will all have been swept up long ago. If such an effect were present for the earth, however, it would lead to anomalous heating of the high atmosphere, which may be observable, if not on earth, then perhaps elsewhere in the locality.

A 6.

One of the major mysteries about the observed universe is that it seems to be mostly matter, with very little antimatter, whereas experiments on earth (CERN) tend to produce equal quantities of both. A possible explanation is that, if the local, observable universe happened to be initially mostly positive pivot then matter would be favoured. Likewise, if one could engineer a (largeish) pool of positive pivot – add (a lot of) energy as neutral photons, then though both matter and antimatter would be produced in a (small) bang as the two were mixed, matter would prevail. It is perhaps worth emphasizing what should be , perhaps, blindingly obvious that, experimentally, matter does prevail in the observed universe. A study of where matter is being produced in the universe, together with some proper modeling of the dynamics of the new theory may yield experimental evidence that will yield insight. Astrophysically the input from experiment is from where new matter is being created. A question for experts: what do we know (spectrally or otherwise) of the object at the centre of our galaxy? 
Another non-astrophysical experiment, of course (everyone), would be to engineer a volume of pivot in space, zap in a lot of electromagnetic energy, and see what happens. I would predict more matter then antimatter. Is there any budget anywhere to set up such a thing – it may cost quite a bit – but much less than CERN.

3 (or less!)
Space drives.
This is (quite a bit) more speculative – but a pivot field might be useful in setting up a space drive. One would have a large, thin, light “sail” to pick up energy from pivot. One would then need a mechanism to convert this to energy one could throw out of the back end (a photon rocket?). This would be far more efficient than picking up mere massive particles – as pivot will contain the equivalent mass in pure energy, providing both reaction mass and enough energy to get it up to the speed of light, in one convenient packet. This relies on sufficient pivot density over and above mass density. Apparently this is the case for most of the universe (experimentally, there seems to be more dark mass energy than particle mass-energy) so it may be feasible – though only in regions far away from pre-existing matter. One would fold in the “sails” where the matter predominated and unfold them where there was more free pivot. Pretty speculative, but would be fun! The system would work better as one went faster as one would sweep more and more volume. Any normal matter would shred the sails though (as would pivot at high density).
That is probably enough speculation for one day
In summary, the chief observable effects are gravitational – where gravitational effects are observed but no matter is seen, and in unexpected energy in apparently empty space heating, light emission, particle creation, showers or so on. Note the latter effect may mean that free pivot may exhibit some of the required features of “dark energy” as well as dark matter. 

Regards, John W.