letter to arXiv.org

From: Sergei Bashinsky <bashinsky@alum.mit.edu>
Date: Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 10:41 PM
Subject: Restoring arXiv:1504.04320 to gr-qc. New submission.
To: moderation@arxiv.org
Cc: rubakov@ms2.inr.ac.ru, Viatcheslav.Mukhanov@physik.lmu.de, unruh@physics.ubc.ca

Dear arXiv-moderation,

Could you possibly restore the subject category of my preprint arXiv:1504.04320,
"Realistic quantum fields with gauge and gravitational interaction emerge in the generic static structure",
to its submission category, gr-qc?

By arXiv's policy that is stated publicly at arxiv.org/help/moderation, the criteria of an acceptable submission are:
    "Articles submitted to arXiv must be of refereeable quality,"
   "ArXiv accepts only submissions in the form of an article that would be refereeable by conventional publication venue,"
and
    "Material submitted to arXiv is expected to be of interest, relevance, and value to those disciplines."

Phys. Rev. D — the primary journal of the American Physical Society and a leading world journal for the gr-qc subjects — is considering the current, substantially improved and extended, version of the preprint (replaced in arXiv on Aug. 16, 2018) and of the companion second preprint (attached), as regular papers in its Cosmology category. This Phys. Rev. D category covers the fields of relevance to my papers: quantum cosmology, canonical quantum gravity, supergravity, and quantum aspects of black holes. They are topics of arXiv's gr-qc. The journal editors raised no objections to the papers' quality, value, relevance, or interest to these disciplines. Both papers are being refereed by Phys. Rev. D reviewers. You can find the journal's notifications forwarded at the end of this email. The status of these papers in my Phys. Rev. D account is ''With referee(s)''. At least their present versions are thus refereeable by definition of "refereeable".

To exclude other possible reasons for arXiv to continue to withhold these papers, please let me go over the other mentioned criteria: "interest", "relevance", and "value" to gr-qc.

Let me start from my academic qualifications and past consistent record of acknowledged and useful scientific results in the addressed areas. As evident from my resume and HepNames profile, the scope and quality of my formal education and research qualifications for these subjects surpass those of the majority of the arXiv submitters. Likewise, my education and past acknowledged scientific results match or surpass those of the arXiv's moderators, as listed at arxiv.org/moderators. I spent years of research in American and European organizations that belong to the world leaders in these fields: Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT; Center for Astrophysics and Space Research at MIT; Princeton Physics Department (Dicke Postdoctoral Fellowship); High Energy, Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Section at ICTP; Elementary Particles and Field Theory Group of Theoretical Division at LANL. At every step, I produced valuable and acknowledged by the scientific community findings about our real physical world. Several of my theoretical findings have by now been confirmed experimentally. As you are aware, this is not typical for the results reported in fundamental theoretical physics during the last two decades. Also not commonly for these fields, all of my earlier claimed results withstood the test of time. As noted in my CV or homepage, more than a couple of my past results, unexpected and sometimes unwelcomed by some people, have become integral parts or even standard references for the contemporary understanding of the respective subjects.

My work in the US was interrupted and forced to be continued in Russia not because of too few results or lack of interest in them. On the contrary, LANL's interest in my earlier results on the measurable cosmological signatures of relic neutrinos was strong enough to compel some of its research staff members and executives to violate LANL's own formal Standards of Conduct and Business Ethics, APS Guidelines for Professional Conduct, and US federal laws. The response of (now former) LANL Particles and Field Theory Group head Dr. Rajan Gupta to my pointing out manifest scientific misconduct, including falsifications of publicly presented data and results, was that "[LANL and APS ethics guidelines and federal law chapters shown to Rajan] do not apply to me [as a non-US citizen]." This referred to falsifications that adversely affected not just me but physics progress in general, including allocation of funds for some high-profile experiments. LANL's actions — acknowledged as clearly wrongful and improper by many of my LANL colleagues, including Rajan himself — were stopped only by emotionally draining two-year efforts, under repeated open threats to terminate my career in science unless I give up: "if you want to continue to do physics," quoting Rajan's words. Documented proof of falsifications and other ethics and law violations by a number of LANL research staff members and executives — confident of their impunity — is abundant and available upon request. It was witnessed and disapproved by several other LANL research staff members, who were telling me however that I would not be able to prevail and that my only sensible option was to let it go. The misconduct was stopped by a formal internal investigation by LANL's Ethics and Compliance Group, initiated by me at the cost of being able to continue my research in the US.

Returning to the two recent papers, Prof. Valery Rubakov, who should be well known to arXiv's gr-qc experts (inspirehep.net/author/profile/V.A.Rubakov.1), read the preprints' earliest versions, submitted to arXiv in April 2015. Despite the still poor presentational quality of those versions, he was very surprised that arXiv blocked them. So were other scientists — mostly in the US — to whom I sent the preprints in 2015. Valery Rubakov, contrary to his rule of not endorsing arXiv submissions and despite my lack of affiliation with his research institute, Moscow State University (where he heads the Particle Physics and Cosmology Division of the Physics Department), or any other Russian organization, agreed to endorse the following statement to arXiv moderation:

"Although the preprints' results would have to be scrutinized by the scientific community for their correctness, the papers present a viable scientific research of interest and relevance to gr-qc. They deserve dissemination to other scientists in the relevant fields, including gr-qc and hep-th."

He found blocking the papers by arXiv inexplicable and unjustifiable after reading them and discussing them with me twice for over an hour. A crucial step of their construction generalizes his classic for quantum cosmology work with Lapchinsky: "Canonical quantization of gravity and quantum field theory in curved space-time". He is thus an exceptionally suitable judge of sensibility of my results and their relevance to gr-qc. Given his expertise, experience, and profound contribution to quantum cosmology, general relativity, and high-energy physics, how could arXiv continue to declare the papers "non-scientific'' and not of interest or relevance based on a swift glance at them by its moderator? Could the expertise, experience, and accomplishments of the arXiv moderator in these fields be close to be comparable to Rubakov's? Should not the moderator's lack of interest in the preprints be itself irrelevant to the question of their release when scientists like Rubakov consider them relevant, interesting, and valuable to be seen by gr-qc researchers?

In April 2015, arXiv moderation wrote me that one of the two preprints, arXiv:1504.04320, "has been released" and "will be announced in the next mailing list." Instead, arXiv isolated it from almost all the researchers who work in the addressed fields and have scientific background necessary to follow it. ArXiv placed and announced the paper in the mailing list for physics.gen-ph — the category known as the storage of dubious submissions. The Wikipedia article about arXiv characterized the category as "dubious e-prints, such as those claiming to refute famous theorems or proving famous conjectures such as Fermat's last theorem using only high-school mathematics." Another publication, describing an interview with the arXiv creator Paul Ginsparg on controversies over arXiv's moderation, characterized this category as "crackpot dumping ground". ArXiv neither restored the gr-qc classification for the first preprint nor accepted the second one to any category even after receiving their above characterization endorsed by Valery Rubakov. Was not it obvious that neither me nor Valery Rubakov belong to the people who "claim to refute famous theorems using only high-school mathematics," especially in cosmology, general relativity, and quantum field theory?

Following the procedure described on the arXiv's website, I appealed blocking these papers. My appeal included Valery Rubakov's endorsement of the above quote. ArXiv replied on May 22, 2015:
"We have received your appeal which our moderators are currently reviewing. Due to the volume of mail arXiv receives, we are not able to provide regular status updates. Upon resolution, we will contact you with further information."
The complete description of the appeal process on the arXiv's website is:
"Please be patient, as moderation appeals are complicated and may take some time."
Now, after almost 3.5 years of my waiting patiently, arXiv is yet to notify me — as its email promised — about the appeal resolution.

ArXiv's non-issuing an arXiv number to the second of these interrelated preprints blocked their submission to appropriate top international journals JHEP and JCAP. The submission is technically impossible for preprints without an arXiv number:
    "Providing the arXiv identifier is necessary for your paper to be considered for open access publication according to the SCOAP3 requirements." (JHEP),
    "The field "arXiv id" in the first window is mandatory and your submission will fail if you do not provide it." (JHEP),
    “It is required to provide an ArXiv id to submit an article to the journal.” (JCAP).

This complicated following the suggestion that arXiv emailed me upon rejecting the second preprint:
"Our moderators suggest that you please send your paper to a conventional journal instead."

Besides de facto labeling the first ("accepted") paper as "non-science", arXiv disabled its cross-referencing to any category other than quant-ph. Yet to follow the derivation of its results, even those of relevance to quant-ph, a reader should be an expert in: gauge quantum field theories, locally supersymmetric quantum field theories, canonical quantum gravity, general relativity, quantum and classical cosmology. These are not areas of quant-ph. They are not in the education background and research interests of most of quant-ph subscribers.

The papers consider relativistic quantum fields. They are not non-relativistic, quantum-mechanical systems, typical for quant-ph. They are described by equations of canonical quantum gravity, supergravity, etc. Local supersymmetry and cosmological inflation are essential for identifying the emergent systems and understanding their properties. These are topics of gr-qc. Many of them overlap with hep-th and astro-ph.CO but not with quant-ph. Of the ten important questions answered by this work, as listed at the beginning of the first paper, only question 5 and to some extent 6 are about "foundational" issues of quantum mechanics. Even these two questions, like the remaining eight, require an extensive analysis outside the scope of quant-ph. The remaining eight questions are about quantum field theory, quantum gravity, quantum and classical cosmology, and gravitational black holes. They all belongs to gr-qc, partly overlapping with hep-th and astro-ph.CO.

The preprint's table of contents also shows that most of the sections cover gr-qc topics that are outside of quant-ph. Only Secs. II-IV overlap with quant-ph. They prove step-by-step that the described structure has all the properties of a physical quantum field system. They are a small piece of the overall picture. The work describes physical universes — not necessarily our but resembling it in every respect analyzed — from the most elementary building blocks. It should be natural for a paper in gr-qc, on quantum cosmology, to prove that the discussed fully-fledged emergent universes also evolve according to quantum principles. Reading beyond the initial paragraphs of the introduction shows that this is only a small fragment of the presented closed picture.

The second paper, "Possible resolution of the black hole information paradox", is clearly unrelated to quant-ph and fits gr-qc. Its results are an integral part of the closed picture described by the papers.

The papers, unlike many arXiv preprints on the same subjects, do not speculate on "hints of a deeper theory" based on analogies, authors' intuition or, e.g., inspiration by the holographic principle. Instead, they methodically describe concrete systems that physically exist in nature. Since these systems exhibit all the fundamental features of the observed world, as represented by the Standard Model and general relativity, the papers are clearly important. Their results are a major advance in subjects central to our understanding of the physical world. Is not the discovery of previously unknown structures that are generic, appear to be identical to our universe, have been understood completely on the fundamental level, and have provided concrete answers to the majority of the problems of modern physics "expected to be of interest, relevance, and value" to arXiv subscribers?

I released the first versions of the preprints in April 2015. I submitted them to arXiv, sent to (only) several other physicists, and made downloadable from my homepage. Over the following year, this website — concisely describing the results (see bashinsky.edicypages.com/past for the site version displayed over Apr. 2015—Aug. 2018) — experienced a surge of visitors from 57 countries. About half of them had the ISP addresses of universities with the strongest theoretical physics research in the US, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia. For the US only, they included Caltech, Columbia U., Harvard, NYU, MIT, Princeton, Ohio State U., Stanford, SUNY at Stony Brook, Tufts, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of California at its various locations, Univ. of Texas at Austin, and many other. Most of the visitors were scientists, as evident from their ISP addresses and clicks. I received emails on issues of normal scientific activity — requests to add a citation on a popular topic mentioned, or suggestions for collaboration. This was despite the sketchiness of several key parts of the original (April 2015) preprints and their poor readability (something not to be ashamed of and remarkable for the conditions under which those versions were prepared). This was despite arXiv's branding the first preprint with the shameful "physics.gen-ph" label and declaring the second one to be non-scientific. At last, this was despite my sending them to only a handful of people. I believe, this confirms definite interest — mentioned among the arXiv's acceptance criteria — to other researchers.

Let me suggest that the reason for isolating the preprints was poor readability of the first drafts, presenting otherwise sound, straightforward, and important findings. (That still fails to explain arXiv's non-response about the appeal, ongoing for over 3 years.) The quality of the current versions of both papers is irreproachable. They also now cover meticulously several key steps that were outlined earlier and promised to be elaborated. They satisfy the arXiv's criterion of being refereeable by being refereed by the field's leading American journal, Phys. Rev. D.

I expect, and believe that others will agree, that these arguments exclude any proper grounds for further withholding the papers from the majority of the qualified researchers. The papers should not be withheld by the policy declared at the arXiv's website. I am ready to justify why prolonging their isolation on improper grounds would as well be an ill-conceived idea.

My view of the situation, understandably, has been affected by the events that I witnessed at LANL, the arXiv's birthplace. This lengthy letter should ensure that if arXiv continues to isolate these results, it should leave little doubt that arXiv is yet aware of their relevance, quality, and likely high significance to fundamental science. It could continue only with comprehension that this would be a violation of arXiv's declared policies and a serious breach of scientific integrity. Let me still hope that the causes of the regretful and tremendously wasteful mishaps experienced by me and other scientists with arXiv are not rooted in serious underlying issues created by its LANL inheritance.

Further denying these papers the status of citable gr-qc preprints serves no purpose other than making them more vulnerable to being presented by unscrupulous researchers as "independent findings" — hardly unusual today and regularly encountered by me and my colleagues at every step of my scientific career since the start of my Ph.D. research. In the absence of valid justifications to prolong their isolation, insistence on it would be ethically questionable. Selectively withholding these straightforward, exceptionally detailed and now well-written, PRD-refereed papers that report breakthrough results would be the direct opposite of arXiv's stated goals: "Service to our community for immediate dissemination of ideas and results" and "Zero review process". Among the factors that deepen the concerns are little transparency of arXiv's moderation process and of its other consequential decisions, no oversight over arXiv and accountability for its erroneous or improper actions, and many complaints by other researchers about its apparently biased decisions. This is particularly troublesome with arXiv's present monopoly on dissemination of new results among scientists and its being the gatekeeper of some of the leading peer-reviewed journals, including JHEP and JCAP.

Upon replacement of arXiv:1504.04320 after its submission to PRD on Aug. 16, 2018, I noticed another inexplicable action by arXiv. While I have done nothing that could be qualified as "arXiv abuse", arXiv has blocked unendorsed submission of my preprints to every category (amusingly, including physics.gen-ph). This covers even the categories (e.g., astro-ph or hep-ph) with my numerous past submissions that raised no questions from arXiv. Most of those preprints have become published by the leading journals: Phys. Rev. D, Phys. Rev. Lett., Astrophys. J, Nucl. Phys. A and B. They have been well cited by the leaders of the respective fields. Some have become the standard references for their topics and the theoretical basis referred to by experimental projects, including high-profile ones: WMAP, Planck, SDSS, ACT, DESI, Euclid, ABS, CORE, etc. (e.g., inspirehep.net/record/630061/citations).

To summarize, I ask arXiv moderation to restore arXiv:1504.04320 to gr-qc, announce its abstract in the mailing list to the gr-qc subscribers, enable its cross-referencing to other relevant categories (including hep-th and astro-ph.CO), and restore my unendorsed submitting to the categories available to me earlier, including astro-ph and gr-qc. I also expect that arXiv will not obstruct the release of the second preprint, attached to this email. Having waited for the results of the moderation appeal on its previous version for over 3 years, initiating another appeal now would, understandably, be unreasonable. Besides, the paper has been substantially improved and extended in content and length (from 17 to 40 pages). Its most important current results, including the formal proof of the information loss for the specified conditions (Sec. VII.A) and the detailed description of the final stage of the Hawking evaporation (Sec. IX) were not in the 2015 preprint. Therefore, please let me suggest to abandon its 2015 submission, along with its still ongoing appeal, and allow me to submit the present version of the second preprint (attached) as a new paper. The current submissions satisfy by a large margin every criteria for being admissible. It should be justified to consider — and act in accordance to — non-release of their current versions after receiving this email as arXiv's prolonging their isolation despite understanding of its impropriety and of papers' definite relevance, interest, quality, and possible high scientific significance.

Thank you for your time and considerations,
Sergei

bashinsky@alum.mit.edu
[phone number omitted]
bashinsky.edicypages.com

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: prd@aps.org
Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 6:39 PM
Subject: Publication Rights DV12141 Bashinsky
To: bashinsky@alum.mit.edu

Re: DV12141
Realistic quantum fields with gauge and gravitational interaction emerge in the generic static structure by Sergei Bashinsky

Dear Dr. Bashinsky,

To publish your manuscript, APS must ensure that it has obtained all the necessary rights. To facilitate the completion of the 'publication rights' agreement(s) appropriate to your manuscript please visit URL https://authors.aps.org/rights/e/DV12141

For your information, your manuscript has recently been sent for review. We hope to receive useful comments soon.

Yours sincerely,

Journal Services
Physical Review D
Email: prd@aps.org
https://journals.aps.org/prd/

Celebrating 125 Years of the Physical Review
https://journals.aps.org/125years #PhysRev125

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: prd@aps.org
Date: Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 6:41 PM
Subject: Publication Rights DV12142 Bashinsky
To: bashinsky@alum.mit.edu

Re: DV12142
Possible resolution of the black hole information paradox by Sergei Bashinsky

Dear Dr. Bashinsky,

For your information, your manuscript has recently been sent for review. We hope to receive useful comments soon.

Yours sincerely,

Journal Services
Physical Review D
Email: prd@aps.org
https://journals.aps.org/prd/

Celebrating 125 Years of the Physical Review
https://journals.aps.org/125years #PhysRev125

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