A battle to publish my mirror-matter papers

Over the course of half a year since the birth of my mirror-matter model (MMM or M³), it’s been quite a battle to get any of my M³ related papers to be published on major journals. Here I put together some of the comments from the editors and reviewers to get a glimpse of how “friendly” esteemed scientists are when facing new ideas proposed under a relatively unknown name.

• Ref[1] (the 1st n-n’ paper, arXiv:1902.01837) laid the main framework for the new mirror-matter model.

Here is the comment it has received from one reviewer:

… I cannot recommend publication of this manuscript in view of major shortcomings of the *new* part of the analysis, namely the computation of the asymmetry (considering a mirror sector as a solution of the neutron lifetime puzzle is not new, hence only of sufficient interest in combination with the other claims) …

From another reviewer,

… I cannot, however, recommend this for publication … because the essential idea … *is not novel* … [although] the present author deals with the subject in a better and more convincing way …

Both of the above “not new” phrases were highlighted by the reviewers.

Another referee made mistakes in his own calculations and then concluded,

… This is a clever idea, but it does not work. I cannot recommend it …

The only completely positive comments from the last referee:

I have carefully looked at the above submission by Wanpeng Tan and I do like it very much … very nice feature that in the long time spent in a beam only a tiny fraction sin^2(2\theta) of the neutrons get converted to mirror neutrons – whereas in the smaller magnetic bottles the beam keeps bumping into the walls and one looses the above 1/2 sin^2{2\theta} fraction in each collision! … I also like the intuitive suggestion that the conversion on the quark level is faster than that on the nucleon – three quark level -and therefore that K(0)^L–> K'(0)^L transition of the long lived neutral kaon to its invisible mirror should occur at a detectable rate … Finally there is the most remarkable coincidence that the n<–>n’ conversion times inferred from tan’s explanation of the decay anomaly match well the times of nucleosynthesis … I do most strongly recommend the publication of this paper.

Of course, the editor listened to the first two reviewers instead of the last one and rejected ref[1].

• Ref[2] (the star paper, arXiv:1902.03685) applied the new model M³ on nucleosynthesis beyond carbon and evolution of stars.

Here is the comment from an editor,

… Although I personally find the topic of your work interesting, I believe that your results would be of rather limited interest to the astrophysics research community as a whole …

• Ref[3] (the BAU paper, arXiv:1904.03835) applied the new model M³ on K⁰-K⁰‘ oscillations to solve the puzzle of  baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU).

An editor’s universal rejection comment:

… we conclude that your paper does not meet the … criteria of impact, innovation, and interest…

Another editor’s comments:

This seems like nice work that should be published. However … it is incremental – a follow-on paper … We do not typically publish follow on papers … I therefore regret to inform you that your paper cannot be published

Comments from a reviewer:

While the paper contains interesting novel ideas, none of them appear to be based on actual computations. And overall, the manuscript draws some unfounded conclusions and it remains highly speculative.