BEYOND PARTICLES: STRUCTURES AND STRUCTURED VACUUM

The work is not conceived as “new physics” in the usual sense, but as a foundational research program,which explicitly proposes an ontological paradigm shift:from the primacy of particles to the primacy of states and structures. The central point is not the introduction of new phenomenological objects, but the revision of the language through which we describe what we consider physically real. The core of the proposal is what I call Second Physics. The underlying idea is to question the implicit assumption of modern physics, which we might call Conventional One-Scale Homogeneous Physics, according to which the vacuum is an inert, homogeneous, and structureless background. In Second Physics, the vacuum is instead treated as a structured physical medium, polyphase, multiscale, and endowed with internal states and memory. From a mathematical point of view, a key element is the use of Volume Averaging Theory,normally applied to porous and heterogeneous media, extended to the electrodynamics of the vacuum. This leads to generalized Maxwell equations, in which structure-related terms appear that vanish only in the ideal limit of a homogeneous medium. The interpretation is not that of a perturbative “correction” to QED, but of constitutive equations of a medium: the standard theory emerges as a limiting case of a dilute and unstructured vacuum. In this context, the redefinition of the physical state as Ψ = (Fμν, Sμ, Ξ) is crucial. Here Sμ represents a distributed spin field, while Ξ encodes the internal structure and memory of the medium. This implies an implicit abandonment of the notion of a purely instantaneous state: the state incorporates a history, and is intrinsically non-Markovian. This is what makes phenomena such as hysteresis, long-range coherence, and weak but persistent correlations natural, often considered “anomalous” within the standard paradigm. The first part of the work, dedicated to supersymmetry, should be read in a complementary but distinct way. It is not an attempt to “save” supersymmetry after the non-observation of supersymmetric particles. Rather, the idea is that many supersymmetric entities—first and foremost the gravitino—have a structural and geometric role, not a phenomenological one. The gravitino mass is reinterpreted as a supergeometric invariant, obtained through Berezin integration, and not as a parameter introduced through dynamical means. In this sense, the “reality” of such entities lies in their mathematical necessity for the coherence of the theory, not in their detectability as on-shell particles. The important point is that there is neither identification nor fusion between supersymmetry and Second Physics. The two lines remain ontologically distinct. Supersymmetry shows that physically significant but non-particulate degrees of freedom exist; Second Physics, instead, assumes the structured vacuum as a primary physical element. The link between the two is one of structural resonance and conceptual alignment, not of theoretical equivalence. From a philosophical point of view, the work strongly insists on the distinction between ontology and phenomenology: what exists structurally does not necessarily coincide with what is observable as a particle. This also makes it possible to frame more rigorously a series of phenomena often relegated to the margins:weak bio-electromagnetic effects, macroscopic synchronized fluctuations, non-local responses, as possible manifestations of the fine structure of the vacuum, rather than as artifacts or exceptions. Obviously, the program raises open challenges. The introduction of new fields and internal variables increases the number of degrees of freedom, and the criterion of Occam must be discussed carefully. However, the argument here is that such degrees of freedom are not added arbitrarily, but made explicit: in the standard formalism they are implicitly hidden within the concept of an ideal vacuum. The issue of verifiability is real, but it must be placed in the correct context:this is not a collider-oriented theory, but rather a theory of medium response, to be tested in structured, out-of-equilibrium, and multiscale systems. Finally, the relationship with General Relativity remains delicate,but the separation between the metric gμν (macroscopic geometry) and Ξ (structure of the medium) is conceptually analogous to the distinction between kinematics and constitutive relations in continuous media. In summary, I see this as a very serious work in theoretical foundations. It does not simply propose new effects, but a new language to describe physics, bringing into relation the rigorous geometry of high-energy physics and the physics of complex media. If Second Physics succeeds in producing specific quantitative predictions in appropriate experimental contexts, it could offer a concrete path to overcoming the current theoretical impasse, shifting the focus from adding new particles to gaining a deeper understanding of the structure of the vacuum.