The Usual Picture of Neutron Decay is Wrong.

[talanum1]

The Usual Picture of Neutron Decay is Wrong.

by

Willem F. Esterhuyse
talanum1@yahoo.com

Abstract
We prove that fundamental particles cannot change flavor as is believed. Therefore the belief that down quarks can change to up quarks and electrons and electron anti-neutrinos is wrong.

1. Theorem: quark particles cannot change flavor.

Proof:

Take the reaction:

u+e^-→d+ν_e (1)

Since the process is called "electron capture" the electron can't have changed into the neutrino, which is therefore illegally produced. So the reaction can't happen like that. Now if we rewrite (1) as:

u+e^-+(ν_e)¯+ν_e→d+ν_e (2)

and we cancel the neutrino on both sides to get:

u+e^-+(ν_e)¯→d (3)

we see that the reaction couldn't have happened like this because the electron anti-neutrino illegally ceased to exist. Instead, we must find a way for the electron and electron anti-neutrino to combine into energy. The first step toward this is by assuming the electron and electron anti-neutrino bonded to form an anti-ud. So we have:

u+u¯d→d+u¯u (4)

we may do this because the anti-uu can decay into energy. This reaction could have happened. It is also consistent with the data and would look like the process of (1) since in addition the neutrino could also have been produced (see (2)) and the anti-uu annihilation energy could have been absorbed by the neutrino. We see now that the only thing that could have happened is that the u changed places with the d and that the quarks didn't transform (change flavor). QED.

Since no photons are emitted in process (4), (2) we must assume the neutron and neutrino absorb the energy set free.

An alternative view of neutron decay is thus needed. I postulate that it happens as follows:

1. An u-anti-u is created from energy near the neutron.
2. The u quark changes places with a d quark in the neutron leaving a proton and anti-ud.
3. The anti-ud decays to an electron and electron anti-neutrino via a virtual W-minus.

This happens via the formulas:

n→p+e^-+ν¯_e

or:

udd+u¯u →uud+u¯d →uud+e^-+ν¯_e.

This is also consistent with the data.

I can even write the in-between state. It is:
ud-d-u¯-u
and then a virtual particle-complex of the same flavors tries out the possible rearrangement:
ud-u-u¯-d
and finding the energy less it transports the quarks into the new state and unbinds. If the other side is to write the in-between state it must be: “d/u-virtual-W-minus” which is undefined and absurd. I mean by "d/u" a particle that is both a down and up quark at the same time: absurd. This follows from the usual picture and considering time as discrete. Then there is a circle around the vertex where time is equal inside of, and both d and u is in the circle.
The proof above suggests that if electrons and electron antineutrinos and protons are available then the protons will decay just to neutrons.

We therefore state that all particle transformations can be written as:

qqq+qq¯ →qqq+qq¯

or as:

qq¯+qq¯→qq¯+qq¯

where they can be expanded if the qq¯ decays to electron/positron + electron antineutrino/electron neutrino.

We incedentally state that all Feynmann diagrams are unphysical because they contain nodes where we need 1/∞ in both time and space and since ∞ is unphysical the statement follows.

The test for this is that neutron decay would happen profusely at the supplied creation energy of a uu¯ ( mass (uu¯) = mass (pi-zero)/2 = 135/2 = 67.5 MeV/c^2) and not only at W-minus creation energy (80 GeV/c^2).

Conflict of Interest: The author reports no conflict of interest.

Data Access: no data access is required.

Ethics: no animals or humans were used in the research.

Bibliography:

[1] L Strauss. Inleidende Fisika. Van Schaik 1987.
[2] Electron Capture. Wikipedia. Internet. 2025
Funding: No funding was received for this research.

[talanum1]

Also: the conventional physicist cannot give a mechanism for neutron decay: saying that a d emitting a W- is the mechanism does not explain how the W- starts to exist. My way the mechanism is simple contact forces (like two billiard balls colliding) of one quark on another.

[talanum1]

Particles can actually also decay according to:

qqq + anti-qq -> qqq + anti-qq + np-anti-p

where n is a small natural number and p is some particle.

[talanum1]

Proof:

If it was not wrong, then at least a part of the Emitted Particle must have been created from energy. Since the corresponding anti-matter parts are not also produced the Emitted Particle has been illegally produced. Since the Emitted Particle is actually produced, the assumption must be false.