TORSION, STRING TENSION, AND TOPOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF CHARGE AND MASS

We consider the analogy between torsion line defects and vortex lines in a superconductor to suggest that the electric charge and masses of elementary particles may have a geometrical origin. Just as the field vanishes everywhere in a superconductor except along the vortex line, where the flux is confined, we have the torsion being concentrated onl y along the topological defects, giving rise to charge as well as mass . The mass is related to the string tension (proportional to c(2)/G) a nd charge is connected with the gravitational permeability (proportion al to G/c(2)), both induced by torsion.