Does the role of the closed string tachyon in the bosonic string theory need to be further investigated?

Question

.... And WHY? ... Please Elaborate!

Answer 1

Yeah, it really does...there are too many loopholes in the theory (not to mention that tachyons haven't even been proven!).

The bosonic string theories are all unstable because the ground state (lowest excitation stage) is a tachyon with M² = -1/a'. This group of massless particles always includes the graviton, so gravity is ALWAYS an essential part of any bosonic string theory. The vector boson is basically analogous to the photon of electromagnetism. Thus, the antisymmetric tensor field carries a force that is difficult to describe in this short space. The strings act as a source of this field.

When string theory was a still baby back in the 70's, scientists had solved it's equations (which they took from the Gamma equation by Euler). However, as they were solving this, they noticed some inconsistencies. First of all, there was this particle being described that had an imaginary weight, and it was faster than light (superluminal). They realized that this particle (the tachyon) was an anomaly (mistake) in the equations, and had to revise them over and over. Eventually, they figured that the equation was missing gravity (they didn't think string theory was a unified theory, so they ignored gravity). Once they decided to look for gravity in the equation, the mathematical anomalies disappeared and the tachyons were replaced by gravitons. This brought up a new interest in string theory, since it encompassed all of the four fundamental forces.

Also, since tachyons have imaginary mass, the negative mass-squared means that the no-string 'vacuum' is actually unstable.

Its hard to explain...but bosonic string theories are futile, anyway.

Answer 2

11 dimensional string theory, (and 26 dimensional M theory), has not produced anything.

It is possible that the extra 7 dimensions of space in string theory, (that are not perceived), are mathematical deception that first appeared with 5 dimensional Kaluza-Klein Theory.

String theory is possibly deception derived from adding dimensions of space to the already existing 3 dimensions of space one dimension at a time at 90 degree angles to the previous dimension.

That string theory is possibly invalid is stated at the end of the wikipedia article on string theory.

Answer 3

A tachyon is a mass that travels above the speed of light, they can't exist in this universe, if they exist in string theories, those theories must be flawed.

Answer 4

Because certain individuals who are involved in this research are alledged to be selling out to the Romulans.