Vol. 7, Issue 5, Part E (2021)

Abstract
Calculations employing the exponentially damped Breit-Pauli-Schrödinger (XPBS) equation which have been presented in previous work are analyzed with the goal of determining the possible causes for the hypothesized binding of the electron and anti-neutrino to the proton that is responsible for the meta-stability of the neutron. It is found that the main attractive effects come from the spin-same orbit and Darwin interactions between the proton and the electron and anti-neutrino, respectively. For sufficient bonding to occur, it is found that the charge-to mass ratio for the anti-neutrino must fall within the range of +0.5-0.7 a.u. It is found that the variation of the size of the proton charge distribution has a great influence on the degree of bonding with the lighter particles. The value of the proton-electron Coulomb energy indicates that the p⁺e^- separation within the neutron is 10.2 fermi (3.62 α²), which is well within the range expected by Fermi on the basis of the de Broglie momentum-wavelength relation. It is pointed out that the non-zero value of the charge-to mass ratio is still consistent with the known extreme penetrability of the neutrino through matter, as demonstrated by experiments carried out by Reines and Cowan. This is because the lack of electric charge and high speed prevent the neutrino from overcoming the centrifugal barriers encountered in the neighborhood of charged particles, without at the same time precluding collisions at very small separations. The fact that the neutron’s magnetic moment is far less than that of the electron is consistent with observations of systems with tightly bound electrons in the Compton effect.