The Electron: New Theory and Experiment (Fundamental Theories of Physics)

The stupendous successes of the Dirac equation and quantum electrodynamics have established the electron as the most well understood of the fundamental constituents of matter. Nevertheless, physicists agree that the electron still has secrets to reveal. Moreover, powerful new theoretical and experimental tools for probing those secrets have been sharpened during the last decade. The 1990 Electron Workshop was organized to bring theorists and experimentalists together to discuss their common goal of knowing the electron. These Proceedings describe the present state and future prospects for progress toward that goal. The Electron presents the latest theoretical and experimental work seeking to probe the as yet undiscovered secrets of this particle. The theoretical papers encompass a wide range of views on the electron. Several argue that the zitterbewegung is more than a mathematical peculiarity of the Dirac equation, that it may well be a real physical phenomenon and so worthy of serious study both theoretically and experimentally. Besides generating the electron spin and magnetic moment, the zitterbewegung may be a vital clue to electron structure and self-interaction. Some of the papers employ a radical new formulation of the Dirac theory which reveals a hidden geometric structure in the theory that supports a zitterbewegung interpretation.