A team of physicists from Japan has revived a theory from 1867 that describes atoms as “knots” in a hypothetical aether, offering a new perspective on the persistent mystery of matter and antimatter. This work, published in Physical Review Letters, does not endorse the existence of aether as a fifth element, but instead proposes a scenario in which cosmic knots of energy gradually evolved into the matter we recognize today.
In the universe, every particle of matter is accompanied by its counterpart, antimatter. These pairs should have annihilated each other after the Big Bang, theoretically resulting in a universe filled solely with radiation. However, a puzzling imbalance, favoring matter over antimatter, has led to the existence of everything we observe, including our own physical presence.
Various explanations have been offered for this matter-antimatter asymmetry, primarily through mechanisms like charge-parity (CP) violation, yet a definitive solution remains elusive. The original concept proposed by William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, characterized atoms as closed curves or knots in three-dimensional space.
The recent interpretation extends this knot theory to wave packets of energy in the early universe. Following the Big Bang, a series of phase transitions caused disruptions in space, leaving “thread-like defects” in their wake. According to the researchers, these cosmic knots formed as filaments became intertwined due to the expansion and contraction of spacetime.
Ultimately, the knots may have untangled through a process known as quantum tunneling, where particles traverse barriers in the quantum realm, akin to ghosts passing through walls. If these knots exhibited a slight preference for matter over antimatter, their unravelling could shed light on the observed imbalance, as noted in the study.
Co-author of the study, Yu Hamada, a particle physicist at Keio University, commented, “Basically, this collapse produces a lot of particles.” Among these particles are a type of neutrino, which are electrically neutral and nearly massless. Their decay could potentially create the imbalance between matter and antimatter, as Hamada elaborated, “These heavy neutrinos decay into lighter particles, such as electrons and photons, creating a secondary cascade that reheats the universe.”
According to Hamada, neutrinos can be viewed as the progenitors of all matter in the universe, including human beings, while the knots serve as their “grandparents.” This innovative proposal represents a fresh angle on the matter-antimatter dilemma, though the researchers acknowledge that it remains a theoretical framework at this stage.
Their calculations suggest that the collapse of these cosmic knots should produce strings—structures that could be detected by gravitational wave observatories like LIGO and LISA. If such detections occur, it would undoubtedly excite proponents of string theory.
