How do individuals rationalize the cognitive dissonance between their environmental awareness and the maintenance of environmentally unfriendly behaviors? The main goal is to explore the rationalization strategies used by individuals in order to maintain their current behaviors. The secondary goal is to understand if it is possible to induce cognitive consonance, and how this influences intention to change. We present a study with three experimental conditions: inconsistency, control, and consistency. The method to induce inconsistency and consistency was inspired by the (...) paradigm of induced hypocrisy. Results demonstrated that induced inconsistency elicits two main barriers in participants: considering the change as unnecessary, and perceiving to lack knowledge about how to change. Induced consistency elicits tokenism, resulting in a licensing effect. However, behavioral intentions did not differ among experimental groups. Results are discussed considering methodological limitations and possible intervening variable. (shrink)

Bosonic and fermionic particle currents can be introduced in a more unified way, with the cost of introducing a preferred spacetime foliation. Such a unified treatment of bosons and fermions naturally emerges from an analogous superstring current, showing that the preferred spacetime foliation appears only at the level of effective field theory, not at the fundamental superstring level. The existence of the preferred spacetime foliation allows an objective definition of particles associated with quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Such (...) an objective definition of particles makes the Bohmian interpretation of particle quantum mechanics more appealing. The superstring current allows a consistent Bohmian interpretation of superstrings themselves, including a Bohmian description of string creation and destruction in terms of string splitting. The Bohmian equations of motion and the corresponding probabilistic predictions are fully relativistic covariant and do not depend on the preferred foliation. (shrink)

The theoretical prediction of Higgs boson was arguably one of the most important contributions in particle physics in the 20th century, with significant implications for modern cosmology. Its reported discovery in 2012 was celebrated as one of the most significant scientific achievements of all times. The fierce public discourse that followed was at large ignited by the media-hyped nickname “God particle” attributed to Higgs boson. The debate regarding the science-religion relation reinvigorated once again and plenty theologically informed views were expressed. (...) In this paper, I take into consideration the authoritative views expressed by the Catholic Church and the Greek-Orthodox Church and I discuss them in comparison with each other, as well as in juxtaposition with other views expressed in the public discussion on the issue, in an attempt to draw philosophically interesting inferences. (shrink)

Our paper studies the anatomy of the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider and its influence on the broader model landscape of particle physics. We investigate the phases of this discovery, which led to a crucial reconfiguration of the model landscape of elementary particle physics and eventually to a confirmation of the standard model. A keyword search of preprints covering the electroweak symmetry breaking sector of particle physics, along with an examination of physicists own understanding of (...) the discovery as documented in semiannual conferences, has allowed us an empirical investigation of its model dynamics. From our analyses we draw two main philosophical lessons concerning the nature of scientific reasoning in a complex experimental and theoretical environment. For one, from a confirmation standpoint, some SM alternatives could be considered even more confirmed by the Higgs discovery than the SM. Nevertheless, the SM largely remains the commonly accepted account of EWSB. We present criteria for comparing degrees of confirmation and expose some limits of a purely logical approach to understanding the Higgs discovery as a victory for the SM. Second, we understand the persistence of SM alternatives in the face of disfavourable evidence by borrowing the Lakatosian concept of a research programme, where the core idea behind a group of models survives, while other aspects adapt to incoming data. In order to apply this framework to the model landscape of EWSB, we must introduce a new category of research programme, the model-group, and we test its viability using the example of composite Higgs models. (shrink)

The mean-field theory with the use of the slave-boson functional method has been generalized to take account of the spin- and/or orbital-ordered state in the doubly degenerate Hubbard model. Numerical calculations are presented of the antiferromagnetic orbital-ordered state in the half-filled simple-cubic model. The orbital order in the present theory is much reduced compared with that in the Hartree–Fock approximation because of the large orbital fluctuations. From a comparison of the ground-state energy, the antiferromagnetic orbital state is shown to be (...) unstable against the antiferromagnetic spin state, although the situation becomes reversed when the exchange interaction is negative. (shrink)

An examination is made of the way in which particles emerge from linear, bosonic, massive quantum field theories. Two different constructions of the one-particle subspace of such theories are given, both illustrating the importance of the interplay between the quantum-mechanical linear structure and the classical one. Some comments are made on the Newton-Wigner representation of one-particle states, and on the relationship between the approach of this paper and those of Segal, and of Haag and Ruelle.

Sensitivity to the square of the cutoff scale of quantum corrections of the Higgs boson mass self-energy has led many authors to conclude that the Higgs theory suffers from a naturalness or fine-tuning problem. However, speculative new physics ideas to solve this problem have not manifested themselves yet at high-energy colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. For this reason, the role of naturalness as a guide to theory model-building is being severely questioned. Most attacks suggest that one (...) should not resort to arguments involving gravity, which is a much less understood quantum field theory. Another line of attack is against the assumption that there exists a multitude of additional heavy states specifically charged under the Standard Model gauge symmetries. Nevertheless, if we give ground on both of these assaults on naturalness, what remains is a naturalness concern over the prospect of numerous additional spin-zero scalar states in nature. The proliferation of heavy scalars generically destabilizes the Higgs boson mass, raising it to the highest and most remote scalar mass values in nature, thus straining the legitimacy of the Standard Model. The copious use of extra scalars in theory model building, from explaining flavor physics to providing an inflationary potential and more, and the generic expectation of extra scalar bosons in nature argues for the proliferation instability problem being the central concern for naturalness of the Standard Model. Some approaches to solving this problem are presented. (shrink)

We consider a model of the state evolution of relativistic vector bosons, which includes both the dynamical equations for the particle four-velocity and the equations for the polarization four-vector evolution in the field of a nonlinear plane gravitational wave. In addition to the gravitational minimal coupling, tidal forces linear in curvature tensor are suggested to drive the particle state evolution. The exact solutions of the evolutionary equations are obtained. Birefringence and tidal deviations from the geodesic motion are discussed.

The missing piece of the puzzle: the discovery of the Higgs boson On July 4, 2012 the CMS and ATLAS collaborations at the large hadron collider jointly announced the discovery of a new elementary particle, which resembled the Higgs boson, the last remaining undiscovered piece of the standard model of elementary particles. Both groups claimed to have observed a five-standard-deviation effect above background, the gold standard for discovery in high-energy physics. In this essay I will briefly discuss the how the (...) CMS collaboration performed the experiment and analyzed the data. I will also show the experimental results. (shrink)

Based on the q-deformed oscillator algebra, we study the behavior of the mean occupation number and its analogies with intermediate statistics and we obtain an expression in terms of an infinite continued fraction, thus clarifying successive approximations. In this framework, we study the thermostatistics of q-deformed bosons and fermions and show that thermodynamics can be built on the formalism of q-calculus. The entire structure of thermodynamics is preserved if ordinary derivatives are replaced by the use of an appropriate Jackson (...) derivative and q-integral. Moreover, we derive the most important thermodynamic functions and we study the q-boson and q-fermion ideal gas in the thermodynamic limit. (shrink)

In this note, I briefly review Lyre's analysis and interpretation of the Higgs mechanism. Contrary to Lyre, I maintain that, on the proper understanding of the term, the Higgs mechanism refers to a physical process in the course of which gauge bosons acquire a mass. Since also Lyre's worries about imaginary masses can be dismissed, a realistic interpretation of the Higgs mechanism seems viable.

Several particles are not observed directly, but only through their decay products. We consider the possibility that they might be fakeons, i.e. fake particles, which mediate interactions but are not asymptotic states. A crucial role to determine the true nature of a particle is played by the imaginary parts of the one-loop radiative corrections, which are affected in nontrivial ways by the presence of fakeons in the loop. The knowledge we have today is sufficient to prove that most non directly (...) observed particles are true physical particles. However, in the case of the Higgs boson the possibility that it might be a fakeon remains open. The issue can be resolved by means of precision measurements in existing and future accelerators. (shrink)

We model a piece of text of human language telling a story by means of the quantum structure describing a Bose gas in a state close to a Bose–Einstein condensate near absolute zero temperature. For this we introduce energy levels for the words used in the story and we also introduce the new notion of ‘cogniton’ as the quantum of human thought. Words are then cognitons in different energy states as it is the case for photons in different energy states, (...) or states of different radiative frequency, when the considered boson gas is that of the quanta of the electromagnetic field. We show that Bose–Einstein statistics delivers a very good model for these pieces of texts telling stories, both for short stories and for long stories of the size of novels. We analyze an unexpected connection with Zipf’s law in human language, the Zipf ranking relating to the energy levels of the words, and the Bose–Einstein graph coinciding with the Zipf graph. We investigate the issue of ‘identity and indistinguishability’ from this new perspective and conjecture that the way one can easily understand how two of ‘the same concepts’ are ‘absolutely identical and indistinguishable’ in human language is also the way in which quantum particles are absolutely identical and indistinguishable in physical reality, providing in this way new evidence for our conceptuality interpretation of quantum theory. (shrink)

In this paper we present a schema for describing dualities between physical theories, and illustrate it in detail with the example of bosonization: a boson-fermion duality in two-dimensional quantum field theory. The schema develops proposals in De Haro : these proposals include construals of notions related to duality, like representation, model, symmetry and interpretation. The aim of the schema is to give a more precise criterion for duality than has so far been considered. The bosonization example, or boson-fermion duality, has (...) the feature of being simple, yet rich enough, to illustrate the most relevant aspects of our schema, which also apply to more sophisticated dualities. The richness of the example consists, mainly, in its concern with two non-trivial quantum field theories: including massive Thirring-sine-Gordon duality, and non-abelian bosonization. This prompts two comparisons with the recent philosophical literature on dualities:--- Unlike the standard cases of duality in quantum field theory and string theory, where only specific simplifying limits of the theories are explicitly known, the boson-fermion duality is known to hold {\it exactly}. This exactness can be exhibited explicitly. The bosonization example illustrates both the cases of isomorphic and {\it non-isomorphic} models: which we believe the literature on dualities has not so far discussed. (shrink)

The structure of the thermal equilibrium state of a weakly interacting Bose gas is of current interest. We calculate the density matrix of that state in two ways. The most effective method, in terms of yielding a simple, explicit answer, is to construct a generating function within the traditional framework of quantum statistical mechanics. The alternative method, arguably more interesting, is to construct the thermal state as a vector state in an artificial system with twice as many degrees of freedom. (...) It is well known that this construction has an actual physical realization in the quantum thermodynamics of black holes, where the added degrees of freedom correspond to the second sheet of the Kruskal manifold and the thermal vector state is a state of the Unruh or the Hartle–Hawking type. What is unusual about the present work is that the Bogolubov transformation used to construct the thermal state combines in a rather symmetrical way with Bogolubov's original transformation of the same form, used to implement the interaction of the nonideal gas in linear approximation. In addition to providing a density matrix, the method makes it possible to calculate efficiently certain expectation values directly in terms of the thermal vector state of the doubled system. (shrink)

We present an exact solution of the one-dimensional modified Klein Gordon and Duffin Kemmer Petiau equations with a step potential in the presence of minimal length in the uncertainty relation, where the expressions of the new transmission and reflection coefficients are determined for all cases. As an application, the Klein paradox in the presence of minimal length is discussed for all equations.

This essay describes the microhistorical process whereby different groups of scientific actors came to claim that a new fundamental particle had been discovered at CERN. Particular attention is paid to the role of trust, and of distrust, in the directorate's planning of the experimental program and in their interpretation and promotion of its first results. Distrust demanded independent replication; it also influenced the way in which the CERN director general managed the credibility of the results for the world's press, turning (...) a plausible but not yet widely accepted hypothesis into an undisputed fact. Produced and circulated in a context that included physicists, funding agencies, governments, and national power blocs, the discovery of the bosons by physicists in Europe challenged American domination of the field and shaped U.S. accelerator policy for the 1990s. (shrink)

The centrally recognized theoretical achievement that enabled the Higgs boson discovery in 2012 was the hypothesis of its existence, made by Peter Higgs in 1964. Nevertheless, there is a significant body of comparably important theoretical work prior to and after the Higgs boson hypothesis. In this article we present an additional perspective of how crucial theory work was to the genesis of the Higgs boson hypothesis, especially emphasizing its roots in Landau's theory of phase transitions and subsequent theoretical work on (...) superconductivity. A detailed description is then given of the opposition to the Higgs boson hypothesis by many researchers, giving evidence to its speculative nature. And finally, it is discussed the importance of theory work in the decades after the hypothesis in order to make possible the experimental discovery of the Higgs boson. (shrink)

Methods developed in a previous paper are employed to define an exact correspondence between the states of a deterministic cellular automaton in 1+1 dimensions and those of a bosonic quantum field theory. The result may be used to argue that quantum field theories may be much closer related to deterministic automata than what is usually thought possible.

We consider a theory in which spacetime is a 4-dimensional manifold V4 embedded in an N-dimensional space VN. The dynamics is given by a first-order action which is a straightforward generalization of the well-known Nambu-Gotto string action. Instead of the latter action we then consider an equivalent action, a generalization of the Howe-Tucker action, which is a functional of the (extrinsic) embedding variables ηa(x) and of the (intrinsic) induced metric gυv (x) on V4. In the quantized theory we can define (...) an effective action by means of the Feynman path integral in which we functionally integrate over the embedding variables. What remains is functionally dependent solely on the induced metric. It is well known that the effective action so obtained contains the Ricci scalar R and its higher orders. But due to our special choice of a quantity, the so-called “matter” density ω(η) in VN entering the original first-order action, it turns out that the effective action contains also the source term. The latter is in general that of a p-dimensional membrane (p-brane). In particular we consider the case of bosonic point particles. Finally we discuss and clarify certain interpretational aspects of quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of our embedding model. (shrink)

The open Nambu string is revisited in the spirit of an early approach by Rohrlich. Strictly timelike motions only are considered. The proper-time of the center-of-mass is taken as preferred parameter. We propose a canonical formalism in terms of a countable infinity of variables, among them the modes. But the barycentric coordinates have noncommuting components, which makes possible a consistent quantization (in any dimension, four in particular) within the framework of a transverse space of states. If a maximal number of (...) modes is further fixed, a transverse Hilbert space emerges, where spacetime displacements preserve the (positive-definite) scalar product. (shrink)

In the absence of new physics around \ GeV, the electroweak vacuum is at best metastable. This represents a major challenge for high scale inflationary models as, during the early rapid expansion of the universe, it seems difficult to understand how the Higgs vacuum would not decay to the true lower vacuum of the theory with catastrophic consequences if inflation took place at a scale above \ GeV. In this paper we show that the non-minimal coupling of the Higgs boson (...) to curvature could solve this problem by generating a direct coupling of the Higgs boson to the inflationary potential thereby stabilizing the electroweak vacuum. For specific values of the Higgs field initial condition and of its non-minimal coupling, inflation can drive the Higgs field to the electroweak vacuum quickly during inflation. (shrink)

The Bose-Einstein condensation of free relativistic particles [ε=(M 2 c 4 +c 2 p 2 ) 1/2 −Mc 2 ] is studied rigorously. For massless bosons (ε=cp), the condensation transition of third (second) order occurs in2 (3) dimensions (D). The molar heat capacity follows the T 2 (T 3 ) law below the condensation temperature Tc [k B Tc=(2πħ 2 c 2 n/1.645) 1/2 [(π 2 ħ 3 c 3 n/1.202) 1/3 ], reaches4.38 (10.8) R at T=Tc, and approaches (...) the high-temperature-limit value2 (3) R with no jump (a jump equal to6.75R) in2 (3)D. For finite-mass (M) bosons, the phase transition occurs only in3D with the condensation temperature Tc always smaller than that of the corresponding nonrelativistic bosons [ε=(2M) −1 p 2 ]. If the mass M is reduced to zero, the condensation temperature Tc grows monotonically and reaches eventually that of massless relativistic bosons. This mass-dependence of Tc is therefore distinct from the case of nonrelativistic bosons, where Tc grows to infinity as M →0. A brief discussion is given for a possible connection with the normal-to-super transition of the independently moving Cooper pairs (bosons). (shrink)

Free bosonic fields are investigated at a classical level by imposing their characteristic de Broglie periodicities as constraints. In analogy with finite temperature field theory and with extra-dimensional field theories, this compactification naturally leads to a quantized energy spectrum. As a consequence of the relation between periodicity and energy arising from the de Broglie relation, the compactification must be regarded as dynamical and local. The theory, whose foundamental set-up is presented in this paper, turns out to be consistent with special (...) relativity and in particular respects causality. The non trivial classical dynamics of these periodic fields show remarkable overlaps with ordinary quantum field theory. This can be interpreted as a generalization of the AdS/CFT correspondence. (shrink)

In this work we consider the energy states of muonic atoms which are predominantly influenced by vacuum polarization. This fact is used for testing the electron propagator of QED with the modification $S(p) = (\not p - me)^{ - 1} + f(\not p - M)^{ - 1}$ . The data of some well analyzed transitions in muonic He, Si, Ba, and Pb yield the limit M>29 MeV for f=1.Similarly the presence of a Higgs boson would cause a shift of the (...) energy levels which can be measured easier in muonic atoms since the coupling grows with the fermion mass. The analysis of several transitions in heavy muonic atoms shows, that the mass of the Higgs boson is larger than 12.8 MeV.Further reductions of the present-day uncertainties concerning the experimental data and especially of the nuclear structure effects could improve these limits. (shrink)

The book considers foundational thinking in quantum theory, focusing on the role the fundamental principles and principle thinking there, including thinking that leads to the invention of new principles, which is, the book contends, one of the ultimate achievements of theoretical thinking in physics and beyond. The focus on principles, prominent during the rise and in the immediate aftermath of quantum theory, has been uncommon in more recent discussions and debates concerning it. The book argues, however, that exploring the fundamental (...) principles and principle thinking is exceptionally helpful in addressing the key issues at stake in quantum foundations and the seemingly interminable debates concerning them. Principle thinking led to major breakthroughs throughout the history of quantum theory, beginning with the old quantum theory and quantum mechanics, the first definitive quantum theory, which it remains within its proper (nonrelativistic) scope. It has, the book also argues, been equally important in quantum field theory, which has been the frontier of quantum theory for quite a while now, and more recently, in quantum information theory, where principle thinking was given new prominence. The approach allows the book to develop a new understanding of both the history and philosophy of quantum theory, from Planck's quantum to the Higgs boson, and beyond, and of the thinking the key founding figures, such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Dirac, as well as some among more recent theorists. The book also extensively considers the nature of quantum probability, and contains a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, "the statistical Copenhagen interpretation." Overall, the book's argument is guided by what Heisenberg called "the spirit of Copenhagen," which is defined by three great divorces from the preceding foundational thinking in physics-reality from realism, probability from causality, and locality from relativity-and defined the fundamental principles of quantum theory accordingly. (shrink)

It is shown that below the threshold of pair creation, a consistent quantum mechanical interpretation of relativistic spin-0 and spin-1 particles (both massive and mussless) ispossible based an the Hamiltonian-Schrödinger form of the firstorder Kemmer equation together with a first-class constraint. The crucial element is the identification of a conserved four-vector current associated with the equation of motion, whose time component is proportional to the energy density which is constrainedto be positive definite for allsolutions. Consequently, the antiparticles must be interpreted (...) as positive-energy states traveling backward in time. This also makes it possible to define hermitian position operators with localized eigensolutions (δ-functions) as well as Bohmian trajectories for bosons. The exact theory is obtained by “second quantization” and is mathematically completely equivalent to conventional quantum field theory. The classical field emerges in the high mean number limit of coherent states of the exact theory. The formalism provides a new basis for computing tunneling times for photons and chaotic phenomena in optics. (shrink)

A model for U(1) gauge theories over a compact Lie group is described usingR×S 3 as background space. A comparison with other results is given. Electrodynamics equations are obtained. Finally, some considerations and observations about gravity onR×S 3 space are presented.

The parametrized Duffin–Kemmer–Petiau wave equation is formulated for many relativistic particles of spin-0 or spin-1. The first-quantized formulation lacks the fields of creation and annihilation operators which satisfy commutation relations subject to causality conditions, and which are essential to the Quantum Field Theoretic proof of the spin-statistics connection. It is instead proved that the wavefunctions for identical particles must be symmetric by extension of the nonrelativistic argument of Jabs. The causal commutators of Quantum Field Theory restrict entanglement to separations of (...) the order of the Compton wavelength \. The entanglement manifest in the symmetric Duffin–Kemmer–Petiau wavefunctions is unrestricted. (shrink)

The tetradic Lorentz-gauge invariant formulation of the SU(2) × U(1) theory in S3 × R space-time is presented and the general gauge covariant Dirac-Klein-Gordon-Maxwell-Yang-Mills equations are derived. A direct comparison of these equations to those of the SU(2) × U(1) gauge theory on Minkowskian background points out major differences effectively induced by the minimally coupling to S3 × R gravity.