Experiments on the Structure of an Individual Elementary Particle

Abstract

Research begun in the early 1970s on geonium is reviewed. Genoium is a man-made atom, created at liquid-helium temperature in ultrahigh vacuum from an individual electron in magnetic and electric trapping fields. For this atom the electron gyromagnetic ratio g = 2. 000 000 000 110(60) has been measured in microwave spectroscopy experiments after subtraction of quantum electrodynamics shifts. The g - g_Dirac = 11 x 10^-11 excess over the value g_Dirac = 2 for the theoretical Dirac point electron suggests for the electron of nature a corresponding excess radius R_e - R_Dirac over the Dirac radius R_Dirac = 0 and a spatial structure. From a plot of measured g and R values for the near-Dirac particles electron, proton, triton, and helium-3 an electron radius R_e ≈ 10^-20 centimeter is extrapolated. In a speculation, the triton-proton-quark model has been extended to the electron, to a succession of subquarks, and finally to the "cosmon." Rapid decay of a cosmon-anticosmon pair created from the "nothing" state in a spontaneous quantum jump initiated the Big Bang.