Scales and Hierarchies: Planckian Signature in Standard Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript comes up with some theory of vacuum.

I see a number of issues with its approach:

1. it uses the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (16) as a starting point. Why? GP equation is the 2-body singular approximation, which works (more or less) for diluted gases. There is no reason to believe that vacuum can be described well by this approximation, because its known properties indicate that it's more like globally correlated matter, with many number of particles coming into the interaction, not just pairwise.

2. Equations (16-19) are clearly nonrelativistic and 3D. How does 4D Lorentz symmetry and GR appear here? How does the de Sitter etc spacetime appear here?

3. The condensate described by eq (16) must create the drag force and space anisotropy, but magnitudes of both of these effects are seriously restricted by Michelson-Morley type experiments. Why MM experiments don't see this condensate?

4. The terminology is very misleading, all over the text I see the juggling the definitions. For instance, what is 'dissipative vacuum'? If vacuum occupies the whole Universe then what and where to does it dissipate? There is no such thing as thermal reservoir "outside the Universe". 

5. The manuscript is seriously overloaded with various formulae borrowed from nearly all theories of gravity and particles and fields. Most of these formulae are logically disconnected and don't even belong together. 

In summary, I don't recommend this manuscript for publication.

Author Response

We have prepared answers to the referee's comments in the attached file

Davide Fiscaletti and Ignazio Licata

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Long formulas could be rewritten using definitions at an intermediate step in

order to make them more transparent. Derivations of the formulas are not clear.

Author Response

We have made some adjustments in the revised version of our paper in order to develop better the treatment.

Davide Fiscaletti and Ignazio Licata

Reviewer 3 Report

The hierarchy problem of the Standard Model is one of the most interesting issues for understanding the particle physics theory. The authors in the manuscript 2868188 presented an alternative explanation of the hierarchy scales of the Standard Model by invoking a model of a physical vacuum which is characterized by dissipative features close to the Planck scale, expressed by an opportune dispersion relation.

A model of a physical vacuum defined by a Gross-Pitaevskij equation and characterized by dissipative features close to the Planck scale is proposed by the authors. It provides an emergent explanation of scales, hierarchies and Higgs mass generation of the Standard Model. The authors introduced planckeons as a special class of particles which obey the constraints of the Planck scale, ingredients which introduce non-locality and non-linearity by solving some serious problems of scales and hierarchies which afflict the Standard Model.

Moreover, the mathematical framework of their approach shows how a scale-generation mechanism in the interactions predicted by the Standard Model emerges naturally as a consequence of opportune collective excitations of the virtual planckeons of the dissipative vacuum, showing that the interplay of opportune fluctuations of the energy of the vacuum associated with the condensates of the planckeons determines the action of the Higgs boson generating a spontaneous symmetry breaking at the TeV scale.

Finally, the model proposed by the authors leads to the fundamental prediction that the scale of emergence should be deep in the ultraviolet, much above the Higgs and other Standard Model particle masses, close to the Planck scale, just as a consequence of the collective behaviour of the virtual planckeons of the Gross-Pitaevskij vacuum and, therefore, that the cosmological constant and the hierarchy problem could be resolved near to the unification scale Munif associated with the virtual planckeons generating the gravity-electroweak unification scale Munif .

According to the consideration above, I would like to suggest publication of the manuscript in the journal.

Author Response

We thank the referee for its job of review of our paper.

Davide Fiscaletti and Ignazio Licata

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper presents and discuss fundamental new high energy physics theory that may be of help to understand unsolved problems within the Standard Model. It has an important potential for improved understanding that may lead to discovery of new physics and should therefore be published.

The authors may consider the possibility to make the paper more accessible to a wider readership of high energy physicist, without expert knowledge on Planck scale physics and dissipative vacuum, by some more explanatory discussions. Also check if all important quantities are properly defined/explained (e.g. I did not see an explicit definition of l_p in eq. 2). 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we have further improved our paper, with some other explanatory sentences as regards the concepts of the model, as well as some other explanatory definitions of the quantities presented in the model, where it was required for the reader. The changes we have made in the paper are in blue and are in the following pages: 3, 6, 9, 14, 15, 23, 24.  Moreover, we have added 3 supplementary references: (55), (79), (80).

Best regards,

Davide Fiscaletti

Reviewer 5 Report

This paper proposed a model of a physical vacuum. This model is defined by a Gross-Pitaevskij equation and characterized by dissipative features close to the Planck scale. This model introduces a non-local and non-linear texture of the vacuum, which leads to some Planckian signatures of the Standard Model. I would like to recommend the publication of this manuscript, and my comments are:

1. In Eqs. (26) and (27), the parameter delta m_h^2 is related to the masses of the Z, W and tar. Are there other contributions? This should be clarified.

2. In Eqs. (98) and (99), the authors introduce two operators. Since there can be many operators, what are the effects of other operators?

3. There are many namely, which I think a bit redundant. For example, after Eq. (56), there are two "namely" to simply this equation, but I think only showing Eq. (58) is enough.

4. This paper has no figures and no tables, so it is not so easy to understand. I suggest the authors to add some figures and tables, if possible.

Fine.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

we have made some changes and integrations in our paper on the basis your comments. The changes we have made in the paper are in blue and are on the following pages: 3, 6, 9, 14, 15, 23, 24. Moreover, we have added 3 other references: (55), (79) and (80).

Best regards,

Davide Fiscaletti

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I don't find the arguments presented in their response convincing, or even physically relevant. I also suspect that the authors have a serious gap in understanding of the GP equation's applicability range, not to mention other theories "used" in their manuscript. I confirm my decision to not recommend this manuscript for publication

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

our work is based on important consolidated research and lead to relevant results.

The most important changes we have made in our revised version of the paper are on pages: 6, 9, 15, 23, 24, plus 3 added references (55, 79, 80).

Regards,

Davide Fiscaletti and Ignazio Licata

Reviewer 5 Report

The authors have considered my comments and modified their manuscript. I would like to recommend the publication.