The isolated, uniformly moving electron: Selfintersecting SU(2) Yang-Mills center vortex loop and Louis de Broglie's hidden thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper models the electron as a stable, selfintersecting center-vortex loop in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, linking its properties to thermodynamics and topological structures, challenging the point-particle view.

Contribution

It introduces a novel topological and thermodynamic model of the electron as a vortex loop in Yang-Mills theory, connecting particle properties to gauge field configurations.

Findings

Electron modeled as a vortex loop with finite size

Supports de Broglie's thermodynamic ideas for particles

Provides estimates for electron's spatial extent

Abstract

We propose that the one-fold selfintersecting center-vortex loop, being the stable excitation in the confining phase of SU(2) Yang-Mills thermodynamics of scale $\Lambda\sim 0.5\,$MeV, after an electric-magnetically dual interpretation of this theory represents the electron/positron. Our argument invokes recent results on the physics of a strongly and spherically perturbed 't Hooft-Polyakov monopole, the role of the central spatial region in a Harrington-Shepard (HS) (anti)caloron, the latter's deformation towards maximally non-trivial holonomy and subsequent dissociation into a pair of a screened BPS monopole and antimonopole, the energy-density of the deconfining thermal ground state, and the critical temperature $T_c$ for the deconfining-preconfining transition. We estimate the typical spatial extent of the selfintersection region and the monopole core size, implying that the electron/positron, judged by its Compton wave length, is anything but a point particle. Our results support and elucidate the ideas of Louis de Broglie on the thermodynamics of an isolated particle.