High energy unification just implies unification of forces at small distances, because particles approach closer when collided at high energy. So really unification at extremely high energy is suggesting that even at low energy, forces unify at very small distances.

There’s empirical evidence that the strong force becomes weaker at higher energies (shorter distances) and the electroweak force becomes stronger (electric charge between electrons is 7% stronger when they’re collided at 90 GeV), there is likely some kind of unified force near the bare core of a quark.

As you move away from the core, the intervening polarised vacuum shields the bare core electric charge by a factor that seemingly increasing toward 137, and the strong force falls because it mediated by massive gluons which are short ranged.

If you consider energy conservation of the vector bosons (photons, Z, W+, W- and gluons), you would logically expect quantitative force unification where you are near the bare charge core: the QFT prediction (which doesn’t predict unification unless you have SUSY) seems to neglect this in producing a prediction that electric charge increases as a weak function (some logarithm) of nteraction energy.

The reason why energy conservation will produce unification is this: the increasing force of electroweak interactions with increased energy (or smaller distances from the particle core) implies more energy is in the gauge bosons delivering the momentum which produces the forces. This increased gauge boson energy is completely distinct from the kinetic energy (although a moving mass gains mass-energy by the Lorentz effect, it does not gain any charge by this route).

Where does the extra gauge boson energy that increases the effective charge come from when you get closer to a particle core? Answer: the fall in the strong force around a quark core as distance decreases implies a decrease in the amount of energy in short-ranged strong force gauge bosons (gluons). The fall in the energy available in gluons, by conservation of energy, is what is powering the increase in the energy of electroweak gauge bosons at short ranges.

At low energies, the experimentally determined strong nuclear force strength is alpha = 1 (which is about 137 times the Coulomb law), but it falls to alpha = 0.35 at a collision energy of 2 GeV, 0.2 at 7 GeV, and 0.1 at 200 GeV or so.

Levine's PRL data from 1997 show that Coulomb's law increases by 7% as collision energy rises to 90 GeV (PRL, v.78, 1997, no.3, p.424).

Look at it physically: you are getting past the polarised shield of vacuum charges. Once you are really near the core so there are no intervening vacuum charges, the electric charge has no mechanism to carry on increasing further, so the QFT prediction is false. The QFT formulae are for continuous variables, and therefore don’t deal with the quantum (discrete) nature of vacuum charges properly at extremely high energy:

You can’t physically have a fraction of a polarised vacuum charge pair between you and the quark core! Hence the usual mathematical model which doesn't allow for the discreteness, i.e., the fact that you need at least one pair of vacuum charges between you and the quark core for there to be any shielding at all, is the error in the mainstream QFT treatment which, together with avoiding the conservation of energy for gauge bosons, creates the unification 'problem' which is then falsely 'fixed' by the speculative introduction of SUSY (supersymmetry, a new unobserved particle for every onserved particle).

More on the mechanisms here and here:

Dr M. E. Rose (Chief Physicist, Oak Ridge National Lab.), Relativistic Electron Theory, John Wiley & Sons, New York and London, 1961, pp 75-6:

'The solution to the difficulty of negative energy states [in relativistic quantum mechanics] is due to Dirac [P. A. M. Dirac, Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), A126, p360, 1930]. One defines the vacuum to consist of no occupied positive energy states and all negative energy states completely filled. This means that each negative energy state contains two electrons. An electron therefore is a particle in a positive energy state with all negative energy states occupied. No transitions to these states can occur because of the Pauli principle. The interpretation of a single unoccupied negative energy state is then a particle with positive energy ... The theory therefore predicts the existence of a particle, the positron, with the same mass and opposite charge as compared to an electron. It is well known that this particle was discovered in 1932 by Anderson [C. D. Anderson, Phys. Rev., 43, p491, 1933].

'Although the prediction of the positron is certainly a brilliant success of the Dirac theory, some rather formidable questions still arise. With a completely filled 'negative energy sea' the complete theory (hole theory) can no longer be a single-particle theory.

'The treatment of the problems of electrodynamics is seriously complicated by the requisite elaborate structure of the vacuum. The filled negative energy states need produce no observable electric field. However, if an external field is present the shift in the negative energy states produces a polarisation of the vacuum and, according to the theory, this polarisation is infinite.

'In a similar way, it can be shown that an electron acquires infinite inertia (self-energy) by the coupling with the electromagnetic field which permits emission and absorption of virtual quanta. More recent developments show that these infinities, while undesirable, are removable in the sense that they do not contribute to observed results [J. Schwinger, Phys. Rev., 74, p1439, 1948, and 75, p651, 1949; S. Tomonaga, Prog. Theoret. Phys. (Kyoto), 1, p27, 1949].

'For example, it can be shown that starting with the parameters e and m for a bare Dirac particle, the effect of the 'crowded' vacuum is to change these to new constants e' and m', which must be identified with the observed charge and mass. ... If these contributions were cut off in any reasonable manner, m' - m and e' - e would be of order alpha ~ 1/137. No rigorous justification for such a cut-off has yet been proposed.

'All this means that the present theory of electrons and fields is not complete. ... The particles ... are treated as 'bare' particles. For problems involving electromagnetic field coupling this approximation will result in an error of order alpha. As an example ... the Dirac theory predicts a magnetic moment of mu = mu[zero] for the electron, whereas a more complete treatment [including Schwinger's coupling correction, i.e., the first Feynman diagram] of radiative effects gives mu = mu[zero].(1 + alpha/{twice Pi}), which agrees very well with the very accurate measured value of mu/mu[zero] = 1.001...'

VACUUM POLARISATION, AN EMPIRICALLY DEFENDABLE FACT

What is the mechanism for the empirically confirmed 7% increase in electric charge as energy increases to 90 GeV (PRL, v.78, 1997, no.3, p.424)?

There is something soothing in the classical analogy to a sea of charge polarising around article cores and causing shielding.

While the electroweak forces increase with interaction energy (and thus increase closer to a particle core), data on the string force shows it falls from alpha =1 at low energy to ~0.15 at 90 GeV.

If you think about the conservation gauge boson energy, the true (core) charge is independent of the interaction energy (although the mass rises with velocity), so the only physical mechanism by which the electroweak forces can increase as you approach the core is by gaining energy from the gluon field which has a falling alpha closer to the core.

If true, then this logic dispenses with SUSY, because perfect unification due to energy conservation will be reached at extremely high energy when the polarised vacuum is penetrated.

RECAP

Strong force coupling constant decreases from 1 at low energy to 0.15 at about 90 GeV, and over this same range the electromagnetic force coupling increases from 1/137 to 1/128.5 or so.

This is empirical data. The 7 % rise in electric charge as interaction energy rises to 90 GeV (Levine et al., PRL, v.78, 1997, no.3, p.424) is the charge polarisation (core shield) being broken through as the particles approach very closely.

This experiment used electrons not quarks because of course you can’t make free quarks. But quarks have electric charge as well as colour charge so the general principle will apply that the electric charge of a quark will increase by about 7% as energy increases to 90 Gev, while the strong nuclear (colour) charge will fall by 85%.

So what is it that supplies the additional energy for the field mediators? It must be the decrease in the strength of the short-range strong force in the case of a quark.

Get close to a quark (inside the vacuum polarisation veil) and the electric charge increases toward the bare core value, while the colour charge diminishes (allowing asymptotic freedom over a the size of nucleon). The energy to drive the electromagnetic coupling increase must come from the gluon field, because there is simply nowhere else for it to come from. If so then when the polarised vacuum around the core is fully penetrated, the strong force will be in equilibrium with the electroweak force and there will be unification without SUSY.

Update: here is a relevant recent blog post from http://glasstone.blogspot.com/:


‘Dr Edward Teller remarked recently that the origin of the earth was somewhat like the explosion of the atomic bomb…’

– Dr Harold C. Urey, The Planets: Their Origin and Development, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1952, p. ix.

‘It seems that similarities do exist between the processes of formation of single particles from nuclear explosions and formation of the solar system from the debris of a supernova explosion. We may be able to learn much more about the origin of the earth, by further investigating the process of radioactive fallout from the nuclear weapons tests.’

– Dr P.K. Kuroda, ‘Radioactive Fallout in Astronomical Settings: Plutonium-244 in the Early Environment of the Solar System,’ Radionuclides in the Environment (Dr Edward C. Freiling, Symposium Chairman), Advances in Chemistry Series No. 93, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1970.

The fractionation of fallout particles (which have a core of refractory material - i.e., high melting point material - surrounded by material with a lower melting point which has condensed at a later time in the fireball history), and their spherical nature, is similar in a way to planets. Obviously there are many differences.

One of the main ones is that a typical fallout particle, 1 millimetre in diameter or smaller, is drawn into a spherical shape by electrical attractive forces called surface tension - similar to the reason why water forms droplets. But planets are held together by gravity, not surface tension. The main difference is that surface tension acts on the outer surface area which in turn causes internal compression.

Gravity, however, is not due to a surface compression but instead is mediated through the void between fundamental particles in atoms by exchange radiation which does not recognise macroscopic surfaces, but only interacts with the subnuclear particles associated with the elementary units of mass. The radial contraction of the earth's radius by gravity, as predicted by general relativity, is 1.5 mm. [This contraction of distance hasn't been measured directly, but the corresponding contraction or rather 'dilation' of time has been accurately measured by atomic clocks which have been carried to various altitudes (where gravity is weaker) in aircraft. Spacetime tells us that where distance is contracted, so is time.]

This contraction is not caused by a material pressure carried through the atoms of the earth, but is instead due to the gravity-causing exchange radiation of gravity which is carried through the void (nearly 100% of atomic volume is void). Hence the contraction is independent of the chemical nature of the earth. (Similarly, the contraction of moving bodies is caused by the same exchange radiation effect, and so is independent of the material's composition.)

Since most of the mass of atoms is associated with the fields of gluons and virtual particles surrounding quarks, these are the gravity-affected parts of atoms, not the electrons or quarks themselves.

The mass of a nucleon is typically 938 MeV, compared to just 0.511 MeV for an electron and 5 MeV for a quark. Hence the actual charges of matter aren't associated with much of the mass of material. Almost all the mass comes from the massive mediators of the strong force fields between quarks in nucleons, and between nucleons in nuclei heavier than hydrogen. (In the well-tested and empirically validated Standard Model, charges like fermions don't have mass at all; the entire mass is provided by a vacuum 'Higgs field'. The exact nature of the such a field is not predicted, although some constraints on its range of properties are evident.)

Getting back to the topic at the top of this post, every type of force is nuclear in a broad sense. Gravity is basically nuclear because it depends on mass, which is concentrated in the exchange radiation between quarks in the nuclei of atoms. (If gravity was like electric charge, it would depend presumably on macroscopic surface area, which is not the case: in a charged metal sphere, the net electric charge involved in long range forces resides on the surface of the sphere not throughout its volume.) Electromagnetism in the form of the Yang Mills exchange-radiation U(1) symmetry has been unified with the weak nuclear force isospin symmetry SU(2) to produce the electroweak portion of the standard model, SU(2) x U(1), which has 4 gauge bosons that cause forces: the massive charged W+ and W- particles, the uncharged but massive Z particle, and the uncharged and light velocity (no 'rest mass') force causing photon.

The reason why only one (the photon) of the four electroweak gauge bosons operates outside nuclear distances is simply that the other gauge bosons are attenuated by the vacuum at low energy. At high energy collisions (ie, near the charge core, assuming the particles have are able to hit hard enough to break through the vacuum shield) there is attenuation and the weak nucelar force is experienced.

The quark is like a steel cored, rubber coated ball. Throw it gently (low energy) and all the interactions are soft, because the rubber shield is able to prevent the steel core from experiencing any direct interaction. But if you hit nuclear matter together very hard, the rubber is less effective at insulating the core and metallic interactions occur. It is really almost as simple as this; this is not a completely fraudulent analogy. Vacuum polarisation and shielding cause much of the 'rubber' type insulation. There is however some additional complexity which I've recently described on another blog, here, but as stated there it is not as complex as the supersymmetry formulation of the Standard Model.

The strong nuclear force is described in the Standard Model by colour rotation symmetry, SU(3). It has 8 massive gluon mediators, twice as many as the electroweak force. The observed effective colour charge of quarks falls off with increasing collision energy, while the observed electromagnetic force increases with collision energy. These facts suggest that energy may be conserved between all types of gauge boson; the fall of the coupling for the strong force is accompanied by an increase in the coupling for the electromagnetic force.

Conservation of energy of gauge bosons would suggest that when the polarised vacuum is completely broken down (at short ranges/high energies) and the electromagnetic force is maximised, the strong nuclear force will have fallen to the same value (not less than that value). Hence, including conservation of energy for the sum of gauge bosons of the fields automatically does what SUSY (supersymmetry) sets out to do, but instead of inventing unobserved imaginary superpartners like SUSY, we are utilising including a well-established physical principle (conservation of mass-energy) to do the same job.

Of the four usually distinguished elementary forces of the universe (the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational), some 50% at first glance appear to be nuclear in origin (i.e., the strong and the weak forces). However, as we have shown, electromagnetism has been unified with electromagnetism - and this electroweak unification predicted the masses of the W+, W-, and Z massive weak gauge bosons discovered at CERN in 1983, so it is hard real science. Hence on this basis there are three fundamental force categories (electroweak, strong, and gravity) of which near 67% are nuclear (electroweak ad strong). When you include the fact that gravity depends essentially on the nuclear mass between quarks as discussed above, you then see that 100% of the fundamental forces of the universe are intimately nuclear in origin.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

DISCUSSION AT NOT EVEN WRONG ABOUT WHETHER THE POLARISED VACUUM IS REAL.

I don't believe this discussion between Professor Bert Schroer and Eugene Stefanovich. The latter claims: 'If you think that vacuum is a “boiling soup” of particles and antiparticles, then you need to explain the null result of the following simple experiment: place a photographic plate (or any other sensor) in an evacuated shielded chamber. Wait for a long time and then develop the plate. I think you agree that there will be no image on the plate. This means that all those virtual particles are not observable. Then what is the point to keep them in your theory?'

This is why physics is stagnating. Any scrap of useful insight from the abstract mathematical quantum field theory is doubted, while fictitious extra dimensional speculations and entanglement lies based on pure ignorance of the distinction between the mathematical models (two versions of Schroedinger's equation, time dependent and time independent) and REAL PHYSICS at the moment of measurement is IGNORED by lunatics supported by New Scientist and other groups of mindless abusive fascists who refuse to print the facts about their total incompetence and ignorance on the matters they are engaged on reporting.

The virtual charges in the polarised vacuum don’t boil off, the vacuum is not radioactive due to high energy virtual particles. If the energy of the vacuum was high enough to make it completely chaotic kind of gas, it wouldn’t be ordered enough to be polarised in shells around real charges. Dirac called the vacuum charges a sea, not a gas.