Schwinger's Magnetic Model of Matter: Can It Help Us With Grand Unification?

TL;DR

This paper explores Schwinger's magnetic model of matter as a potential framework for grand unification, emphasizing experimental tests of scattering effects that could distinguish it from QCD.

Contribution

It proposes new candidate Lagrangians and a research strategy that reconsiders Schwinger's model in the context of grand unification and experimental verification.

Findings

Scattering calculations suggest van der Waals effects consistent with Schwinger's model.

Recent hadron mass analysis aligns more with Schwinger's theory than with QCD.

Experimental confirmation of scattering effects could validate or falsify Schwinger's model.

Abstract

Many have argued that research on grand unification or local realistic physics will not be truly relevant until it makes predictions verified by experiment, different from the prediction of prior theory (the standard model). This paper proposes a new strategy (and candidate Lagrangians) for such models; that strategy in turn calls for reconsideration of Schwinger's magnetic model of matter. High priority should be given to experiments which fully confirm or deny recent scattering calculations which suggest the presence of van der Waals effects in low energy p-p and pi-pi scattering, consistent with Schwinger's model and inconsistent with QCD as we know it (with a mass gap). I briefly discuss other evidence, which does not yet rule out Schwinger's theory. A recent analysis of hadron masses also seems more consistent with the Schwinger model than with QCD.