Under Pressure
Aran David Stubbs
Summary
This is a brief description of the behaviour of atoms and sub-atomic particles under extreme pressure, based on my theories of sub-atomic structure.
Atoms
Under the near-vacuum of Earth’s surface, low density structures abound. When the pressure rises, for instance under water or underground, higher density structures occur. The sparse structure of graphite is compressed to the denser form of diamonds. Under more extreme conditions, this extends to electron orbits. For instance, Iron has 2 4s electrons, while the 3d subshell only has 6 of the 10 electrons it can hold. Under high pressure at the Earth’s core the outer shell collapses into the next layer down, increasing the density sharply.
Under more extreme conditions at the cores of stars, additional compression is possible. Neodymium has 4 of 14 allowed 4f electrons, with 8 electrons in shell 5 (2 5s and 6 5p), and 2 6s electrons as well. Its equivalent in the next row, Uranium, has 4 5f electrons, 8 in shell 6, and 2 in shell 7. Filling the f sub-shell drops the 2 outer shells, more than doubling the density. In addition, Uranium has an empty 5g sub-shell which can hold 18 electrons. Under stellar core conditions, this can be filled with electrons stripped from Hydrogen, leaving free protons to move through the dense matrix.
Under the most extreme conditions, the electrons can be absorbed into the nucleus creating blobs of neutronium. These are denser than the surrounding atoms, so sink to the center of the core. Eventually a neutronium core developes, with a slushy layer of mixed neutronium blobs, free protons, and residual atoms above. The drop in size causes outer layers to collapse inward with a blast of heat blasting the surface outward.
Sub-atomic particles
Most sub-atomic particles in a star have constituents in 1s orbits: Electrons, up quarks, down quarks, and up/down diquarks. As the free electrons get absorbed into the nuclei, few are available to compress. Any that do get changed to 2s orbits (muons) are even easier to absorb (being closer in size to the quarks). Down quarks are easiest to compress, forming strange quarks. However these are small enough that bonding to up/down diquarks isn’t feasible. Compressing the diquarks in theory produces up/strange diquarks and then charm/strange. Galactic black holes can go further, producing charm/beauty and beauty/truth. Not all combinations need be viable, a truth monoquark may be too small to bind to a beauty/truth diquark (maximum ratio of diameters is about 12:5). 4s and higher orbits are also possible under the most extreme conditions.
Under further pressure increases, the baryonic structure in general will give way. The diquark/quark combination collapses to a triquark structure. This causes a massive drop in energy per quark, producing a burst of energy. The change flashes through the dense matrix, generating a blob of low-density dark matter at the center of a mass of baryonic matter pushing it outward in a big bang.