Colin D. Froggatt

Hierarchy of Quark Masses, Cabibbo Angles and CP Violation

Some ideas are put forward towards understanding the fact that mass ratios of quarks or leptons are usually rather large. These speculations are based on the assumption that the basic (bare) couplings at small distances are all of the same order of magnitude but otherwise unknown or random. The most promising explanation requires the bare left- and right-handed components of a quark to have different values for some almost conserved quantum number. These differences determine the order of magnitude of the corresponding quark mass. The generalized Cabibbo mixing angle connecting two types of quarks is then predicted to be given order of magnitude wise by the square root of the corresponding quark mass ratio. However, it is difficult to understand why CP is so well conserved.

Origin of symmetries

The development in our understanding of symmetry principles is reviewed. Many symmetries, such as charge conjugation, parity and strangeness, are no longer considered as fundamental but as natural consequences of a gauge field theory of strong and electromagnetic interactions. Other symmetries arise naturally from physical models in some limiting situation, such as for low energy or low mass. Random dynamics and attempts to explain all symmetries - even Lorentz invariance and gauge invariance - without appealing to any fundamental invariance of the laws of nature are discussed. A selection of original papers is reprinted.

X-ray Line 3.55 keV from Dark Matter, Our Glass Pearls

It has previously been suggested an X-ray line of photon-energy 3.55 keV (in the emission frame), not being understood in terms of expected materials in the astrophysical sources, might come from dark matter. We confront this idea within our own model for dark matter. Our model is remarkable by not needing new physics, but only the Standard Model supplemented by a fine tuning law, the Multiple Point Principle, restricting the values of the coupling constants and the Higgs mass in the Standard Model. The crux of the matter is that in our model the dark matter consists of cm-sized pearls, which are bubbles of a suggested new type of vacuum (called condensate vacuum) containing some ordinary atomic matter under a very high pressure caused by the weak-interaction-scale surface tension. The inside ordinary matter is hoped to be a glassy insulator with a homolumo gap that happens to be close to the 3.55 keV, so that excitons may decay giving such X-ray radiation. The energy needed for producing this 3.55 keV-radiation is suggested to come from the surface contraction made possible, when two such pearls - very seldomly - hit each other. A major success is that we get the intensity rather well predicted order of magnitudewise in our model, using values of the parameters of our model already set up to fit properties considered before we looked at the 3.55 keV radiation. In addition we make some theoretical considerations on the homolumo-gap model developed by two of us and I. Andric and L. Jonke.

BEYOND THE STANDARD MODEL

This paper explains the Accelerating Universe, the Special and General Relativity from the observed effects of the accelerating electrons, causing naturally the experienced changes of the electric field potential along the moving electric charges. The accelerating electrons explain not only the Maxwell Equations and the Special Relativity, but the Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation, the wave particle duality and the electron’s spin also, building the bridge between the Classical and Relativistic Quantum Theories.