Beta decay as a virtual particle interaction

analogous to Hawking radiation

By: Ray Fleming

Abstract
The existing theory of the weak interaction has some troublesome issues with
conservation of energy and limited range. Beta decay theory would be more
complete if there were a mechanism that places the electron or positron decay
product farther from the proton or neutron so that they would not be
immediately reabsorbed. This is readily accomplished by a Hawking radiation
type interaction between a virtual electron-positron pair and a proton or neutron
and this type of interaction readily accounts for each form of beta decay.

PACS: 23.40.-s, 23.50.+2, 31.15.x-

Introduction
Beta decay has always been problematic to physicists, as it cannot be accounted for
within the scope of classical electromagnetic theory. That theory does not include a
mechanism to account for nuclear decay and does not account for the fact that the beta
particles have a continuum of energies. In a letter to some colleagues in 1930 Wolfgang
Pauli speculated that an electrically neutral particle, which came to be known as the
neutrino, could take away the remainder of the energy, thus adjusting for the energy
continuum. The neutrino theory was soon formulated in much greater detail by Enrico
Fermi.1 This beta decay theory was grouped with a number of other mostly nuclear scale
interactions into what was termed the weak force or weak interaction.

While the neutrino theory provided a mechanism accounting for the excess energy, it
did not satisfactorily address why there was a continuum of energies in the first place. In
an intuitively ideal scenario the beta particle would have a fixed amount of kinetic
energy equal to or a fixed fraction of the total energy. Instead, the beta particles have a
broad range of energies starting at the maximum, peaking somewhere near the middle
and tailing off near zero. The energy difference between the maximum and any given
beta particle is then carried by a neutrino or antineutrino. That explanation, however,
does not explain why there is a continuum and additionally it does not satisfactorily
address how and why the particles decay. In order to address the later problem,
electroweak theory was developed whereby these weak interactions occurred due to the
mediation of W and Z particles.

W and Z Particle Theory

The difficulties with electroweak interaction theory begin with those particles mass-
energies. The W+ and W- have a mass energy of 80,398 MeV and the Z is somewhat
greater, but they are said to be emitted from quarks with substantially less mass-energy.
In order to not violate the principle of conservation of energy the W+ and W- must be

1
virtual. In other words they must exist for less time than is necessary for them to be
measurable as quantified by Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle. Even though free W+
and W- particles are known to have very short half-lives that means that they can only
exist for 1.3 x 10-26 seconds in order to not violate Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle as
it applies to delectability. That gives a maximum range of motion of slightly over 3.8 x
10-18 meters assuming a velocity of the speed of light.. If we compare that range to the
charge radius of a proton per CODAT 2010 of 0.8775 x 10-15 meters, the W+ and W- Range
is ~230 times smaller than the radius of a proton, and similarly smaller than a neutron. A
W-, for example, would decay well inside the proton in the vast majority of cases, so
unless the electron has sufficient energy, equal to or greater than the total energy
released by neutron decay of hundreds of keV, then it will be recaptured. Even if an
electron were released at the surface of a proton, it would still need the same amount of
energy to avoid being recaptured.

If the W particle is a virtual particle, however, how can it give up energy without once
again violating the principle of conservation of energy? Furthermore, if a virtual W
particle decays into a permanently stable particle such as an electron, conservation of
energy has already been violated. The only way out of this conundrum is to presume the
W and Z particles take some quasi-virtual state. The vast majority of the rest mass-
energy must be in a virtual form to prevent the violation of the principle of conservation
of energy, while a small amount of additional mass-energy must be non-virtual and be
available to be contributed to the mass-energy of a stable particle along with its kinetic
energy. The model of a single particle with a combination of virtual and stable energy is
a highly questionable concept because of the violation of conservation of energy, and yet
that is what the current electroweak theory asks us to believe. There is also still the
question of why beta particles are emitted with a continuum of energies. Taken together
there are enough questions about the current theory of beta decay that it makes sense to
find additional mechanisms to fill in the gaps in the theory, if not replace it in its
entirety.

The Hawking Interaction

Stephen Hawking came up with the idea that a vacuum fluctuation, a virtual particle-
antiparticle pair, that comes into existence near a black hole can be partly absorbed by
the black hole when one particle of the pair crosses the black hole event horizon leaving
the other outside.1 When that occurs the virtual particle pair cannot recombine and
consequently the black hole loses energy as the now free particle leaves the vicinity of
the black hole. Consequently a black hole radiates energy through a mechanism that
became known as Hawking radiation.

We can similarly consider what happens when a vacuum fluctuation, consisting of a

virtual electron-positron pair comes into existence near a neutron. A neutron is known
to form when an electron is sufficiently energetic and gets very close to a proton.
Similarly a free neutron decays into a proton and electron with an average half-life of
~10 minutes. For the purpose of determining the most simple possible neutron decay
interaction it is then useful to think of a neutron being an electron collocated with a
proton, neglecting for the moment quark decay mechanisms. Now if we have a virtual

2
electron-positron pair next to a neutron we can see that the virtual positron may
annihilate with the electron part of the neutron. This is analogous to a virtual particle
being absorbed by a black hole as it prevents recombination of the virtual particle pair.
That leaves a free proton in place of the original neutron, with the once virtual electron
becoming free at some distance from the proton. That distance is related to the virtual
electron-positron wavelength, as is the newly freed electrons energy.

Because the virtual electron-positron wavelength is large relative to the size of the
proton, the electron is free and clear of the proton, and unlikely to be reabsorbed. Note
that the virtual electron-positron pair wavelength at the pair production energy, 1.022
MeV, is 6.07 x 10-13 meters, nearly 700 times the proton radius. It is not necessary for the
virtual particle pair to be at the pair production energy, since as with Hawking
radiation, the now free electron has the annihilated electrons rest mass-energy, plus
what is left of the virtual energy, and energy released due to the decay. If the particle
pair energy were only 0.01 MeV, then the wavelength would be 6 x 10-11 meters, which is
slightly greater than the Bohr radius of a hydrogen atom.

Such an interaction easily explains the beta energy continuum as the energy of the
vacuum fluctuations participating in such an interaction covers a range of energies. The
beta energy decay curve flattens out at ~750 keV in the upper range and reaches a
maximum at nearly 300 keV energy.3 When initiated by a Hawking interaction the beta
energy is equal to or a function of the vacuum fluctuation energy, while the height of the
curve at a given energy depends on the interaction probability. The neutrino theory is
still the likeliest explanation accounting for the difference between the beta particle
energy and the total energy of the interaction and conservation of momentum. If the
beta particle energy is equal to the virtual particle pair energy, then if for example a
virtual electron-positron pair has 400 keV of energy initially, the neutron decay product
would be a 400 keV beta along with an antineutrino and a free proton.

The same type of Hawking interaction occurs when the neutron is within a nucleus. Beta
decay generally occurs in cases where a nucleus has too many neutrons to be stable and
is thus able to give up sufficient energy for a neutron to decay. This decay is still
mediated by a virtual electron-positron pair, which appears out of the vacuum adjacent
to the nucleus so that the virtual positron annihilates with the electron component of a
neutron. This leaves a free electron at some distance from the nucleus with enough
excess energy given to it by the nucleus that it becomes free of the atom and radiates
outward.

Electron Capture and Positron Emission

Another common form of beta decay happens when a nucleus is unstable because it has
an excess of protons. In this case a proton may capture an orbital electron turning the
proton into a neutron. The nucleus provides the 600+ keV of energy a free electron needs
to approach a proton, plus the additional energy of the decay products. The question has
always been, how does an orbital electron gain many times its orbital energy so that the
two can combine? The Hawking interaction provides a simple and elegant explanation
for electron capture and overcomes that problem, as the positron from a virtual electron-

3
positron pair annihilates with an orbital electron depositing a now stable electron near
the nucleus where it can be absorbed by a proton. A neutrino and one or more photons
must still be emitted to balance the energy and momentum per the usual formulae. In
the case of positron emission a virtual electron-positron is close enough to a proton in
the nucleus so that the electron gets captured leaving the positron free. The nucleus
provides the positrons energy allowing it to escape the atom.

Virtual Proton-Antiproton Interactions

These reactions can also be thought of as virtual proton-antiproton mediated
interactions. If an antiproton from a proton-antiproton pair interacts with a neutron,
then the part of the neutron that equates to a proton will be annihilated leaving behind a
free electron and a new proton deposited off to the side. The energy of proton-
antiproton pair at the pair production energy is 1.877 GeV, which equates to a
wavelength of 0.33 x 10-15 meters, roughly a third of the proton radius. The range of
interaction for a proton-antiproton mediated interaction is much smaller than with the
electron-positron mediated interaction, but it could be sufficient enough in some cases
where the virtual proton-antiproton wavelength is longer or the energy of decay is
greater so that the electron and proton do not recombine. The proton-antiproton
mediated interaction accounts for a second mode of beta decay as is sometimes present.
Note that current theories do not do a good job explaining two modes of decay either. In
cases where virtual proton-antiproton interactions do not cause decay they make the
nucleus appear to vibrate.

Orbital Transitions
Another long unanswered puzzle of atomic mechanics is how does an electron
instantaneously jump from orbital to orbital? When electrons make theses jumps they
appear not to accelerate or decelerate while moving at or near the speed of light. There is
only a single photon emitted with energy equal to the difference in energy between
orbits, when there would be many photons emitted if there where gradients of
acceleration and deceleration. Of course orbital transitions are a lot like electron capture
without the capture. Orbital electron transitions must also be mediated by virtual
electron-positron pairs. The virtual positron annihilates with the orbital electron and the
newly free electron appears in another orbital. A photon is emitted for the energy
difference if it has moved to a lower energy orbital. It is possible for an electron to move
to a higher orbital if a photon of the exact energy of the difference in orbital energies is
absorbed.

Even more generally the appearance of electron orbits as probabilistic clouds is readily
accounted for by the same Hawking interaction. At the quantum scale, when electrons
move distances that are a similar size or smaller than the electrons Compton radius,
they move due to virtual electron-positron mediated quantum jumps.

4
Conclusion
A Hawking interaction that is analogous to Hawking radiation yields a logical and
intuitive mechanism explaining beta decay, electron capture, positron emission, and
neutron decay. As with Hawking radiation, half of a virtual particle pair is captured
allowing the other half to be freed. When this occurs adjacent to a nucleon, the virtual
particle pair can either annihilate the electron component of a neutron or produce a
neutron by combing an electron with a proton. This is a simpler and a more
fundamentally intuitive way of explaining the quantum jumps across distances than the
existing W and Z model without violating conservation of energy. Additionally it meets
the requirements for explaining orbital motion and orbital transitions of electrons. It is
also important to recognize that this interaction theory has essentially the same
probability of being correct as Hawkings theory of radiation from a black hole.

More generally a virtual particle-antiparticle interaction provides a mechanical

description of all movement at the quantum level, for all types of particles. At the same
time it is fundamentally consistent with quantum electrodynamic theory such that it
cannot be considered an independent force or interaction.

1 E.Fermi, Z. Physik 88 161 (1934).

2 S.Hawking, Black hole explosions? Nature 248, 30 (1974). doi:10.1038/248030a0
3 A.R.Young et al, The UCNA Experiment: Recent Progress, 6th International UCN Workshop, 5 July 2007,

Saint Petersburg, Russia. http://cns.pnpi.spb.ru/6UCN/articles/Young.pdf