Electricity without electrons

The universe so far:

If charged lepton fields are eliminated from the universe, charged pions become stable (having no decay path that preserves charge), replacing electrons to form bound "atomic" states with protons, as do free neutrons. Protium, however, is not stable, as it is energetically favorable for a proton and pion to combine, releasing a gamma ray to produce a neutron. Thus, the largest component of the material universe is not hydrogen gas, but free neutron gas. Stellar fusion is, therefore, much easier (exactly how much easier depends on the stability of dineutronium in this universe, which I am not sure about, but that's not super relevant here), so stars tend to be smaller. Neutrons and protons bound in nuclei are stable against much larger nuclear shell energy differences, since conversion between neutrons and protons needs to release enough energy to produce a massive pion, rather than a comparatively light electron.

As a result, we get pionic "atoms" that are relatively rich in neutrons, with the positive nuclear charge being balanced by a cloud of negative pions. What with being bosons, the pion cloud does not contribute to any particularly interesting chemistry like electron clouds do in our universe. Instead, neutrons take on the "chemical" role vacated by electrons. The neutron content of pionic atoms is not dictated by the nuclear charge like the electron shell structure of a neutral electronic atom is, but a maximum neutron count is set by the point at which filling ever higher neutron shells results in a sufficiently large energy difference between the next proton orbital and the next neutron orbital that adding a neutron will result in pion-decay to produce another proton (thus producing a much closer relationship between "chemical" reactions and nuclear reactions in this universe than exists in our universe). The excess of neutrons, resulting in larger nuclei, and the small size of the massive pion cloud in a pionic atom compared to the electron cloud around atoms in our universe makes it possible for nuclei to approach close enough to each other for neutron-chemistry to occur, forming covalent bonds in which neutrons are shared between multiple proton cores.

As far as I can tell, there is no obvious equivalent of polar or ionic bonding based on neutrons.

It is still conceivable that polyatomic neutron shells may end up forming a "conduction band" in which neutrons can flow freely over long distances... but this obviously doesn't result in the net transport of electric charge.

Now, on to the question: can this universe support electricity as we know it, based either on the flow of negative pions or positive ions? With a bosonic pion cloud, can arrangements of different neutron-bonded protonic nuclei still result in net charge separation, giving rise to polar molecules, ions, and static electric effects? If not, is there some other way to begin inducing charge separation and current flows that can form the basis of electromagnetic technology?

Maybe it's as simple as relying on permanent magnets, which should still exist based on nuclear spin alignment...

posted over 5 years ago

Logan R. Kearsley‭

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