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Photon Travel in the Universe: Why Are High-Energy Gamma Rays Blurring Between Stars?
In the endless universe, the travel journey of photons is full of mysteries and challenges. When we look up at the night sky, great stars and galaxies are twinkling in the distance. What is the reason why the light of these light points changes with distance? In particular, high-energy gamma rays, whose interstellar blurring and attenuation phenomena have attracted widespread attention from astronomers and physicists.
Gamma ray energy becomes blurred as distance increases. In addition to the effects of scattering and absorption, it also involves the interaction between photons.
Gamma rays are the most energetic electromagnetic radiation. When they travel through the universe, the low-energy photon background light they encounter causes them to interact. This process makes high-energy gamma rays no longer bright. This process is similar to driving in fog. It looks clearer up close, but as the distance goes away, the vision becomes increasingly blurry.
According to the latest further research, this blurring phenomenon will become more obvious when the energy of gamma rays exceeds 20 GeV. As the distance increases, the probability of gamma rays scattering from background photons increases significantly, causing their energy to decrease and eventually disappear. Such phenomena reveal the complex relationship between energy and matter in the universe.
Interactions between photons of high-energy gamma rays and low-energy background photons lead to the creation of particles, such as electron-positron pairs.
These interactions not only reduce the number of high-energy gamma rays, but also make the universe "opaque" to high-energy photons. The emergence of this opacity makes us reflect on how much unobserved energy can exist in this vast space?
The so-called "photon-photon interaction" is actually an important topic in cosmic physics. To gain insight into these interactions, scientists use high-energy particle accelerators to conduct a large number of experiments. These include gamma-ray experiments at CERN's Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP), which reveal the inner structure of photons and how they interact.
The study of gamma rays not only helps us understand light itself, but also allows us to think more deeply about the origin and evolution of the universe.
In addition to accelerator research, the phenomenon of light-light scattering has also been observed in recent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The interaction between photons becomes more pronounced through the strong electromagnetic fields generated by collisions with baryons. Not only is this a challenge for fundamental physics, it may also provide us with evidence for new forms of matter.
From the perspective of quantum electrodynamics, photons cannot interact directly, but they can interact indirectly through higher-order processes or virtual particle pairs. This process reveals the strange properties that may exist in photons, some of which even involve the formation of quarks and antiquarks, making the study of gamma rays increasingly complex.
Future research may change our basic understanding of matter and energy, and even redefine the operating laws of the universe.
With the advancement of science and technology, scientists continue to explore the source of these high-energy gamma rays and their behavior as they travel through the universe. We may be able to uncover more secrets behind the travel of these photons in the near future, and even discover new phenomena hidden in the vast starry sky of the universe.
With this craze for physics and cosmic exploration, we can’t help but wonder: What stories and secrets do photons bring with them when they travel among the stars?
