Hi Georgina,
You are right; I don't think that the free electron is a fundamental particle. I believe that its primary mass and charge component, which I call a beta electron, is fundamental. This is the particle orbiting the neutrino in my free electron model. The beta electron is not only a component of free electrons, but also of muons, which I believe are components of the proton.
With regard to experimental evidence, what experiments reveal depends strongly on what the people interpreting the results are looking for. Big discrepancies from prevailing beliefs revealed by experiments (such as the deep inelastic scattering experiments in the 1960s revealing that the proton is not fundamental, but made of component particles) cannot be ignored. However, subtle implications can easily be dismissed or somehow explained away to preserve the prevailing beliefs. In the case of the electron, I think beta decay of unstable nuclei provides experimental evidence of the composite electron; but because historically, the particle observed seemingly exiting the nucleus during the decay was not thought to have originated in the nucleus, the point was missed.
To supposedly conform to the Uncertainty Principle, in beta decay, an electron (miraculously) appears outside the previously unstable nucleus, while the charge of that nucleus increases by +1 and its mass decreased slightly, but the electron did not come from inside the nucleus. Also, because of conservation of energy and angular momentum problems with that interpretation, the appearance of a neutrino was later added to the explanation. As I discussed in a paper I attached to an earlier post, the simpler (and I think more reasonable) explanation is that the nucleus emitted the (beta) electron to stabilize itself. Once outside the nucleus, the beta electron caused the production of a neutrino-antineutrino pair, from which the beta electron captured the neutrino to form a free electron, leaving a residual antineutrino.
One might argue that, if in the above scenario a neutrino antineutrino pair could be produced, why couldn't an electron-positron pair be produced from which the nucleus captures the positron to increase its charge, leaving the residual electron as a decay product? The short answer is that adding a positron to the nucleus would increase its mass, but the mass of the nucleus actually decreases as a result of beta decay. The nucleus loses mass as a result of the decay.
This is just my interpretation of the decay. Of course, I have no standing or authority within the physics community. So, as with my other interpretations such as the proton made of muons and the complex free electron, it is not seriously considered, regardless of any merit it may have. What can you do?
I read your model of electron vibration paper, but I haven't quite digested it yet. When you say electrons vibrate, it seems you don't mean like particles experiencing Brownian motion, but that the electrons are somehow oscillating internally. If I'm wrong about this, please provide more description of the nature of the vibration. If my understanding of your vibrating electron is near correct, I can see why you think that my two-particle complex electron would not support your model, and also why spin would seem to be a problem for it. However, if the orbit of the beta electron around the neutrino in my model is elliptical, the movement of the massive beta electron through its orbit could produce an effect similar to your vibrating (oscillating) electron (a circular orbit works, too). The mass (and charge) would move back and forth from side to side. Just a thought. As I said, I'm still trying to understand your proposal. Any additional information such as diagrams or calculations would be useful and greatly appreciated.
