Thursday, 14 June 2018

particle physics - Experimental boundaries for size of electron?


There is some confidence that electron is a perfect point e.g. to simplify QFT calculations. However, searching for experimental evidence (stack), Wikipedia article only points argument based on g-factor being close to 2: Dehmelt's 1988 paper extrapolating from proton and triton behavior that RMS (root mean square) radius for particles composed of 3 fermions should be g2:



enter image description here


Using more than two points for fitting this parabola it wouldn't look so great, e.g. neutron (udd) has g3.8 and $\approx -0.1 fm^2$.


And while classically g-factor is said to be 1 for rotating object, it is for assuming equal mass and charge density (ρmρq). Generally we can classically get any g by modifying charge-mass distribution:


g=2mqμL=2mqAdIωI=2mqπr2ρq(r)ω2πdrωI=mqρq(r)r2drρm(r)r2dr


Another argument for point nature of electron is tiny cross-section, so let's look at it for electron-positron collisions:


enter image description here


Beside some bumps corresponding to resonances, we see a linear trend in this log-log plot: 106 mb for 10GeVs (5GeV per lepton), 104 mb for 1GeV. The 1GeV case means γ1000, which is also in Lorentz contraction: geometrically means γ times reduction of size, hence γ2 times reduction of cross-section - exactly as in this line on log-log scale plot.


More proper explanation is that it is for collision - transforming to frame of reference where one particle rests, we get γ→≈γ2. This asymptotic σ1/E2 behavior in colliders is well known (e.g. (10) here) - wanting size of resting electron, we need to take it from GeVs to E=511keVs.


Extrapolating this line (no resonances) to resting electron (γ=1), we get 100 mb, corresponding to 2 fm radius.


From the other side we know that two EM photons having 2 x 511keV energy can create electron-positron pair, hence energy conservation doesn't allow electric field of electron to exceed 511keV energy, what requires some its deformation in femtometer scale from E1/r2:



1.4fm12|E|24πr2dr511keV


Could anybody elaborate on concluding upper bound for electron radius from g-factor itself, or point different experimental boundary?


Does it forbid electron's parton structure: being "composed of three smaller fermions" as Dehmelt writes? Does it also forbid some deformation/regularization of electric field to a finite energy?




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