DailyCelestialChallenge / Thursday - Forces in Nature (Did you have a fifth force of nature?)

in #celestialchallenge7 years ago

An experiment in Hungarian physics indicates the probability that there is a force of nature beyond the four that are currently known as:

  • Gravity hits us on the ground,
  • The strong nuclear interaction is broken by bombardment with neutrons to produce energy in nuclear power plants.
  • The electromagnetic radiation generated by the Sun or the light bulbs illuminates us and
  • The weak nuclear interaction, perhaps the most esoteric one, produces new elements and allows, for example, dating by carbon 14.

By the beginning of 2016, we began to talk about the possible discovery of a fifth force, many tried to imagine a phenomenon similar to the one we already know. However, there is still much to be able to confirm the finding and the effects of that fifth force would not be as visible as those of the previous four.


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We would know it as *** [dark energy] (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energ%C3%ADa_oscura) *** is a form of energy that would be present in all space, producing a pressure which tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe, resulting in a repulsive gravitational force.


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<<*According to estimates, summarized in this NASA graph, about 70% of the energy content of the universe consists of dark energy, whose presence is inferred in its effect on the expansion of the universe * >>

If in the end it succeeds and is not crushed by new data that contradict it, the history of this revolution will begin to be counted in Hungary. There, at the Institute for Nuclear Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Debrecen, Attila Krasznahorkay and her team observed a strange phenomenon in an experiment designed to search for "dark photons", a type of particles that would help understand what matter is dark In their search, protons were fired at lithium targets, generating nuclei of beryllium 8, an unstable element that, due to the weak nuclear force, disintegrated producing electrons and positrons.

In the particles produced in those shocks, they found an anomaly that they were only able to explain if there was still a unknown particle. It would be a lightweight boson, only 34 times heavier than an electron, something that would allow its detection without a huge machine like the LHC, necessary to generate heavy bosons like the higgs. That would make it possible for many groups in the world to study that energy range in search of the new particle, but it also raises the question of why it has not been found before.

This new *** dark force *** is motivated by three observed astrophysical anomalies, namely:

  • The "fog" observed by the WMAP satellite
  • The excess energy of the positrons of the cosmic rays observed in the experiments PAMELA, Atic, FERMI, HESS4
  • The 511 keV excess observed by the INTEGRAL satellite

It is possible that "this fifth force has no consequences for our lives," says Massó. However, it could serve to approach a theory that unifies the four great forces, something to which Einstein dedicated the last years of his life. Although in the 1960s it was seen that at high energies the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces could be explained as one, efforts to do the same with the rest have not been successful. Perhaps this new boson could serve to achieve what the discoverer of Relativity did not achieve.

*There are some ideas about the future of the universe. One makes mention that this phantom energy causes a divergent expansion, which would imply that the force of dark energy continues to grow until it dominates the rest of the forces of the universe. Under this scenario, dark energy would eventually shatter all structures gravitationally, including galaxies and solar systems, and eventually surpass the electric and nuclear forces to destroy the atoms themselves, ending the universe in a Big Rip. On the other hand, dark energy can dissipate over time or even become attractive. Such uncertainties open the possibility that gravity can still lead to the universe contracting itself in a "Big Crunch". Some scenarios, such as the cyclical model, suggest that this may be the case. *


Information sources:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energ%C3%ADa_oscura
https://elpais.com/elpais/2016/08/31/ciencia/1472658226_451236.html
http://intelligentideasandsolutions.blogspot.com/2009/11/energia-oscura-y-materia-oscura.html

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excelente articulo!