PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In a paper published in the August issue of the Journal of Low Temperature Physics, Humphrey Maris, professor of physics at Brown University, proposes that electrons can undergo a form of fission under suitable conditions.
He has also discovered there is a significant amount of experimental evidence supporting his theory.
Physicists consider that matter in the world is composed of a large number of elementary particles. It has been regarded as a general principle of physics that an elementary particle cannot be broken into two pieces.
Maris’ theory considers what happens to electrons when they are immersed in liquid helium at a temperature of one degree above absolute zero. Previous experiments have shown that an electron in helium becomes trapped in a bubble approximately 100-billionths of an inch in diameter. The bubble drifts through the liquid with the wave function of the electron confined inside it. According to quantum theory, the state of a particle is described as its wave function.
Maris shows that when the bubble is illuminated with infrared light, the bubble can divide into two smaller bubbles each containing a part of the wave function of the electron. These two bubbles can then move independently through the liquid and become separated from each other.
In the 1970s, researchers at Bell Laboratories and the University of Michigan performed experiments on the effect of light on electrons in liquid helium. These researchers were unable to explain their surprising results. Maris realized that these old experiments, together with more recent measurements made at the University of Lancaster, could be understood in terms of his theory and provided support for his ideas.
Further experiments to test the theory are underway at Brown University in work supported by the National Science Foundation.
Journal
Journal of Low Temperature Physics