What Are Bosons?

[Anomalocaris]

Oh, I thought you said bosoms.

They are fermions, I tell you, they slap you away if you ever try to occupy the same physical state with them.

[Alex K]

Oh, I thought you said bosoms.

They are fermions, I tell you, they slap you away if you ever try to occupy the same physical state with them.

Technically, you'd only be affected if you're a boob.

Oh...

[Alex K]

Do neutrons become bosons if you add more mass to the neutron star until it exceeds the Landau Oppenheimer volkoff limit?

*googles LOV Limit*

Oh, the LOV is the Chandrasekhar limit for Neutron stars instead of white dwarfs. Ok, no. Iirc, the effect leading to the collapse is this: for nonrelativistic neutrons, the Energy goes with the momentum squared
E~p^2

Close to the speed of light, this becomes E~p according to special relativity.

This changed relation leads to a different relation between Energy and volume: the volume inversely determines the momentum of the Neutrons^3 (think Heisenberg uncertainty for decreasing deltaX), and in the relativistic case the Energy increases more slowly with momentum, therefore increases more slowly as the volume decreases. Thus, the pressure is lower, suddenly not being able to compensate the gravitational pressure any more. Bam, black hole collapse.

[The Valkyrie]

I thought they were crewmen on ships...?

[Rhondazvous]

In all generality, Bosons are objects, usually particles, which do not adhere to the pauli exclusion principle. Fermions are the opposite category, because they do: No two of them which are of the same type, can be in the same physical state. This is why two Electrons, which are not Bosons , cannot occupy the same Energy level in an atom if they also have the same spin and angular momentum. It is also the reason why neutron stars do not collapse to black holes by themselves: neutrons are not bosons either. Photons are bosons, and therefore one can have a light beam of a fixed color of arbitrary intensity. You can cram as many photons of the same frequency in one bunch of light as you are willing to pay the electricity for.

I suspect that you do not (yet) care about this technical detail of Fermions vs. Bosons, and that your question is rather: what is an elementary particle. Am I correct?

You may not believe that I understood everything you said, but I do. Actually, I know that there are 2 types of fermions—quarks (neutrons and protons) and leptons (electrons). As my op suggests, the focus of my question is whether bosons contain energy or actually are energy.

[Rhondazvous]

Oh, I thought you said bosoms.

They are fermions, I tell you, they slap you away if you ever try to occupy the same physical state with them.

Are you referring to anti-matter? Look too hard and your eyes will turn into gamma rays.

[Alex K]

In all generality, Bosons are objects, usually particles, which do not adhere to the pauli exclusion principle. Fermions are the opposite category, because they do: No two of them which are of the same type, can be in the same physical state. This is why two Electrons, which are not Bosons , cannot occupy the same Energy level in an atom if they also have the same spin and angular momentum. It is also the reason why neutron stars do not collapse to black holes by themselves: neutrons are not bosons either. Photons are bosons, and therefore one can have a light beam of a fixed color of arbitrary intensity. You can cram as many photons of the same frequency in one bunch of light as you are willing to pay the electricity for.

I suspect that you do not (yet) care about this technical detail of Fermions vs. Bosons, and that your question is rather: what is an elementary particle. Am I correct?

You may not believe that I understood everything you said, but I do. Actually, I know that there are 2 types of fermions—quarks (neutrons and protons) and leptons (electrons).  As my op suggests, the focus of my question is whether bosons contain energy or actually are energy.

Ok, very good! Of course I believe you. I believe however that your question equally applies to fermions and bosons. Their relation to energy philosophically doesn't differ much in my view, but let's go with Bosons.

I must ask you a question in return - What is, in your terminology, the difference between a Boson being Energy and a Boson containing Energy? What do you mean by those words?

[Rhondazvous]

You may not believe that I understood everything you said, but I do. Actually, I know that there are 2 types of fermions—quarks (neutrons and protons) and leptons (electrons).  As my op suggests, the focus of my question is whether bosons contain energy or actually are energy.

Ok, very good! Of course I believe you. I believe however that your question equally applies to fermions and bosons. Their relation to energy philosophically doesn't differ much in my view, but let's go with Bosons.

I must ask you a question in return - What is, in your terminology,  the difference between a Boson being Energy and a Boson containing Energy? What do you mean by those words?

If only I had something other than words to express my meaning—like a direct connection to my brain.

When I say bosons containing energy, I mean the boson is like a physical container with the energy inside it like a lightbulb is a glass container. or it could be a catalyst with energy attached to it the way oil attaches itself to a soap molecule.

When I say the boson is energy, I mean the boson (what other words can I use here), I mean that the energy itself is called a boson and is not contained in a separate entity.

I hope that brings us closer to understanding one another. Thanks for your patience.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I always find it helps if I just think of all particles (electrons, protons, fermions, whateverons) as being roughly the size and shape of a small pea.

Boru

[Alex K]

Yes it does. But I can't give you a definite answer. Not because the question is bad, but because I am not sure which of the things I think I know about particles are artifacts of the formalism used to analyze the theory, artifacts of the theory we use to describe nature, and which things are really truths independent of how one writes down and treats the theory. Furthermore, my understanding of theory has its limitations. Last but not least, "a particle" in common usage is an idealized thing which does not reflect the intricasies of the theory.

With those caveats: In the Standard Model, the way it is usually written down, elementary particles are excitations of fields. They carry theoretical labels  which distinuish them (which field it is, and in what state precisely). Energy is a secondary property which can be assigned to field configurations, among others such as momentum, charge, etc., and isolated particles correspond to field configurations with certain discrete energy quantities corresponding to their mass via mc^2. In this picture, elem. particles are not containers of energy, but neither would one say they are Energy itself.
One might hoewever be able to simply adopt the speech convention that everything is Energy, and that this Energy can be stored in different fields, or, equivalenty, be assigned different labels.

But I don't feel comfortable giving Energy such a fundamental role.