if u could make a new SUBATOMIC partical how would you make it interact with photons
Okay its SO COOL you asked this of me specifically, because I actually do have a fictional subatomic particle that interacts with photons!!
EDIT: I HAD TO READ-MORE THIS IM SO SORRY
Photons are wild because they don't have mass, so they don't interact with matter. HOWEVER under certain circumstances, like the gravitational lensing we get when massive celestial bodies warp space-time and thus warp the path the light is on, we see essentially 'gravity' bend light. ALSO with things like Delbruck Scattering, where the "Coulomb Field" (basically positive point field caused by the cloud of negatively charged electrons) of an atomic nucleus will actually deflect high energy photons. BUT OTHER THAN THAT, generally photons go through matter. This is why shadows aren't actually black, but carry the colour of whats blocking them, and stuff. Its also why people with nominally functioning optic nerves sometimes see bright flashes or little spots of colour when their are closed. Those photons went through the eyelid to hit the optic nerve, despite the eyes being covered.
BUT, interestingly enough, Photons do interact with electrons, at least in crystalline media. This is how prisms and photovoltaic cells work! Basically its a material with electrons of a certain frequency and pattern and bonding energy, and when a photon gets lucky and slams into one of those electrons, it energizes it. This electron jumps up an energy level because of that (literally it hops up to a new electron shell around its nucleus). BUT it can't stay there! Its unstable there! It want's to be stable at home in its lowest energy state possible, so it has to ditch that extra energy to get back down. To do so, it will emit a photon of a wavelength corresponding with the energy level it fell from!! SO IN THAT WAY Crystalline matter interacts with Photons via the electron energy levels and bonds!!
Now this is a good point to say: I needed this for a narrative tool, to get a specific effect to create the big bad for my scifi novel. So this isn't the way I professionally think science and math works, this is me using my understanding and bending it to do fun "but what if this" thought experiments.
SO my working theory revolves around the concept that we exist in a 3+1 dimensional space, and that that space is broken into the Real Phase Space (ours) and the Imaginary Phase Space - one literally 90 degrees off of our physical plane. We are 3+1 dimensional creatures: we can manipulate 3 dimensions (L/W/H) and perceive but not manipulate a 4th dimension (time). There are higher dimensions, and the beings that live in those dimensions essentially approach gods from our perspective. They are simply beyond our comprehension, they have energy that is leagues above what we can consume and interact with. They are simply BIG. This theory is based off the calculus concept of doing math in higher dimensional spaces in order to simplify the math of lower dimensions. (Part of Multivariable calculus, please don't ask me to do it, its been years since I had to do what I'm talking about.) BUT, they are part of this same Universe, so they are built off of the same particles as we are, they just have more of them in more interesting orientations.
So with that said, my theory starts with an idea that that if there was a particle that was out of phase with matter by being in this Imaginary Phase instead, it might be in phase with light during the transition between wave and particle. This is based off the concept of electron tunneling.
When Electrons Tunnel (a quantum behavior where electrons have a non-zero probability to suddenly be on the other side of a "gap in conductivity" we call a "potential barrier"), they are neither particle nor wave. They are some secret third thing. SO what if other particles that exhibit both wave and particle behaviors have this secret third state? What if they pass through that state when observed, or 'observation' changes. (The 'observation' concept comes from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal.) And What if we could explain the reason we can't 'see' what that secret third state is, as it being Out of Phase with Our Reality?
Nifty. Useful. How do we make a particle that can be out of phase with our Real Phase Space, while still existing and having influence on 3+1d Space? How do we make particles at all?
Quarks!
Basically every Proton and Neutron is made of a sea of Quarks which are either Up or Down Quarks. And these Up or Down Quarks are basically the "most stable" and final decay state of higher energy and higher mass Quarks. They started as Top or Bottom Quarks at the beginning of the universe, and decayed into Charm or Strange, and then finally landed as Up and Down Quarks as the high energy soup of the universe settled into physical matter, where Top lead to up, and Bottom lead to down:
Top -> Charm -> Up Bottom -> Strange -> Down
Now in the real world, we only know these are real true things that happened because we've seen them by slamming particles together in CERN. They only exist for bare figments of a moment, but basically one of the results of high and focused enough atomic energy is heavier, higher energy quarks, which we then watched decay down the chain.
Now over time as the universe settled into matter, seas of lower energy quarks came together, and the sum of one of those seas of Quarks becomes a Proton or Neutron. The net total either comes out to being 2UP+1DOWN or 2DOWN+1UP, and this difference defines or identifies whether that Quark sea constitutes a Proton or a Neutron.
So my (quite literally) imaginary Quarks start out life as "Left and Right" Quarks, which decay into Shout and Cry, and then Wish and Fluke.
Left -> Cry -> Fluke Right -> Shout -> Wish
And essentially, these things are also in the sea of Quarks that make up Protons and Neutrons; but are completely out of phase so don't interact directly with what we consider the "mass" of a Proton or Neutron. This means they don't participate in the identification of a Proton or Neutron in Real space, which means that 2 protons may have a different number of Fluke or Wish Quarks. (This is a phenomenon not well understood in universe, and its that bleeding edge and lack of understanding that causes problems in my novel. Fun fact, Flukes and Wishes cause particles that carry 'sentience' and 'will'. This is the origin of life baybee!)
HOWEVER!!! WHAT imaginary Quarks DO INTERACT WITH is electromagnetics and 'spooky' fields (so entanglement and magnetism)!!! Now normally, the presence of Flukes and Wishes doesn't really change anything from the perspective of defining matter, since they remain at their "most stable" state (and since its not really recognized in-universe that 'mana' or the soul is a real physical property and not some folk story), and thus don't interact with the Real phase-space matter (directly). And theoretically Fluke and Wish Quarks have "been there" as long as Up and Down Quarks, so basically since shortly after the formation of the Universe. So the definition of 'normal' actually already takes into account the existence of imaginary quarks.
BUT. When you slam (the protons and neutrons that host) these imaginary quarks with the right phase and frequency/energy of light, they begin to behave differently. You can energize them! You can push them up quantized energy levels (like electorns), and theoretically force them up to being Shout and Cry and Left and Right! But the further you energize them, the further away from the Real Phase they go, ie they become more imaginary. So Left and Right Quarks are simply not detectable in Real Phase Space. However, High-Band Wishes and Flukes are still usable and detectable with bleeding edge tech.
Now, because The Real and Imaginary Phase Spaces are "hyper-planes" on the same coordinate axis, they share a volume, and so any deviation off of the Imaginary Axis brings a particle more into Real space (which in tern causes slight and transient field perturbations), so actually at their base energy state Imaginary Quarks oscillate back and forth between real and imaginary phase spaces. (We're using this as an alternative explanation of why the Casimir Effect seems to produce quasi particles due to tight confines of quantum forces in vacuum - those particles aren't being created and irradicated, they are simply falling out of phase! So in fact, we've come back around to referencing reality again, which helps us legitimize our fake science!)
ALSO. This oscillation happens at a regular rate (think the way quartz emits electrons regularly enough for us to make watches from them). Which means that at any given point in time, t, both Real and Imaginary Quark variants may be more or less influential on Real Phase Space. This is mechanic that can be used to cause atoms to change trajectories.
FINALLY, unlike Real Quarks, Imaginary ones are not 'part' of the Proton or Neutron, so are able to pass in and out of the Quark Sea. The mechanism and cause of this is not understood in universe, but essentially comes down to what those atoms come in contact with over their lifetime. This is how genetic memory works, as well as twin instincts, and how the reports of shared memories following organ transplant works.
SUMMERY
SO Basically, long post to say: I made up fake Quarks that capture energy from photons as they cease to be photons while in the secret third thing state they (dubiously) pass through as they are becoming a wave or field. These fake Quarks form the carrier particles of sentience and life, which is why pregnant mothers are said to be "glowing". They physically are, since there's more life per life-form. These fake Quarks interact with the imaginary phase primarily, and only slightly interact with the Real phase, due to the natural phase oscillation that all quarks undergo (in this fictional universe). Imaginary quarks do not identify protons or neutron, but instead codify other information which is appended to a nucleus and identifies a specific instance of a specific atom. (Ie a hydrogen atom from my body is actually unique from a hydrogen atom from your body, because there's different "metadata" associated with me than is associated with you. It comes down to your life and sentience is a different experience than mine, thus different numbers of Flukes and Wishes are contained in your atoms than in mine.)
Photons are naturally absorbed by these imaginary quarks during natural processes associated with life, thinking, dreaming, etc (migraines may be associated with a sensitivity with these processes, who knows maybe ill give my disability a cool connection); however directed photon streams with specific properties can be used to manipulate Imaginary Quarks.
Thank you so much for asking this, Im so unwell about the fake science in this novel its been keeping me sane during dissertation hell x'D
