Ervin Goldfain. Universal Transition to Chaos and the Family Structure of Particle Physics
Natural Sciences / Physics / Particle physics
Submitted on: Feb 26, 2012, 18:03:00
Description: The standard model for high-energy physics (SM) describes fundamental interactions between subatomic particles down to a distance scale on the order of 10 ^ (-18) m. Despite its widespread acceptance, SM operates with a large number of arbitrary parameters whose physical origin is presently unknown. Our work suggests that the generation structure of at least some SM parameters stems from the chaotic regime of renormalization group flow. Invoking the universal route to chaos in systems of nonlinear differential equations, we argue that the hierarchical pattern of parameters amounts to a series of scaling ratios depending on the Feigenbaum constant. Leading order predictions are shown to agree reasonably well with experimental data.