Physics – Nuclear Physics
Scientific paper
Apr 1984
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1984nupha.418..301h&link_type=abstract
Nuclear Physics A, Volume 418, p. 301-311.
Physics
Nuclear Physics
7
Scientific paper
Ultra-relativistic U238 - U238 collisions, which are now being envisioned for the next generation of heavy ion accelerators, do not occur in large quantities anywhere in the universe at present. Nor have they ever occurred abundantly in the past. When U238 nuclei were first synthesized the universe had grown already far too cold. This raises the question whether such a novel type of experiment could trigger a catastrophic phase transition of the vacuum to a tower energy state, a possibility naturally occurring in many spontaneously broken quantum field theories.
Theoretical calculations of the collisionally induced nucleation rate of critical bubbles precipitating such phase transitions are not yet available, and nothing is known about the parameters describing the barrier separating our vacuum from a possibly lower energy state.
Fortunately, available cosmic ray evidence suggests that sporadic individual U238- U238 collisions have indeed occurred at ultra-relativistic energies inside our past light cone, which would imply that the proposed experiments do not tread potentially dangerous new ground. Direct confirmation of the predicted small abundance of U238 and other actinides in cosmic rays at energies in the interesting range 1013- 1015 eV, corresponding to 40 GeV/n - 4 TeV/n, is not feasible at present. Nevertheless, even indirect detection of at least some ultra-heavy nuclei in the actinide group (Z > 88) in this energy range would more affirmatively answer the question: ``Do we dare disturb the vacuum?''
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