We had a long discussion of this. Zeuzzz was shown how totally absurd the idea is - you'd need such a huge charge on the star that it would instantly explode from electrostatic repulsion, for one thing. That doesn't seem to have any effect on his faith, though, and he now seems to have conveniently forgotten all about it.
Lets just clear up a few things here then.
The large charge in the sun, is a non standard model, which used to be supported by Donald Scott. His website, "electric-cosmos" still has this hypothesis up:
"The Sun is at a more positive electrical potential (voltage) than is the space plasma surrounding it - probably in the order of 10 billion volts." (
link). How he arrived at this number, I dont have a clue. And I dont think Scott knows either. The funny things is, there is not one peer reviewed publication that says that the sun has to be that of that charge, the only website that suports this seems to be that one page. Ians plasma-universe site does not mention this idea under the page "sun and stars", if you want to see the sun and stars from a plasma cosmology/universe perspective, its much more prosaic, but emphasises the role of electrical effects, and the link between simulating plasma phenomenon on earth to gain understanding of how the sun works via plasma scaling tranformations (that last one, not really yet, I'm going to update that page soon with some info)
Sun and Stars
I'm pretty sure that Scott has since reconsidered this hypothesis after contemplating it. He has now suggested, instead of the large net charge, the charge is maintained by a strong plasma double layer on the suns surface, which has a novel explanation for the (still considered unexplaned) origin of the solar wind, the variability of the solar wind, and coronal heating using a
Solar Surface Transistor Action mechanism. - IEEE, Pulsed Power Plasma Science, 2007. The sun is thus shielded from external electrostatic forces (the fundamental property of DL's) and so would not "explode" with this charge. Just like the Earth, the the almosphere around the sun (solar wind) will generally attract enough particles to make it overall neutral. I'm not a big fan of scotts old idea, the considerable charge on very large bodies wouldn't work as, like with Earth, any charge retained should be gained by an equivalent in the atmosphere to make it
overall neutral. And until someone gives a satisfactory mechanism to explain why this would not happen (which I think could be possible), I dont think that much charge on a body would be tenable. The electric field of the earth (surface), is about 120 V/m (plenty of references for this), rendering the
surface net charge at very roughly 10
6 C, but this should be cancelled by the uppter atmosphere. So its reasonable to suppose that a similar, but more powerful, system exists on the sun.
Scott does however maintain that Z-pinch fusion could be produced in the double layer, as the currents in the DL are potentially strong enough to cause this, but I dont think that the pressure in the solar atmosphere can account for this. Unless he explains, either, why the method we employ to measure the surface pressure of the sun is wrong, or Z-pinch can occur at low pressure. Which so far I have not seen.
However, Scott need not worry, as IEC fusion is a perfect candidate for fusion, it for now seems more likely than Z-pinch fusion. The pressure does't have to be anywhere near as great, IECF uses essnentially a very simple setup of, relatively weak, electric fields, and the focus of these fields creates fusion. Energy loss is the current problem in producing an efficient comsumable fusion device, but the future is looking promising.
And the visible light properties of a glow discharge (essential reading:
Electric glow discharge) could preduce the spectra of a star, indictating that the spectral class of star is not dependant on its nuclear cycle, but rather shows the stability and strength of the electric field on the sun, and the subsequent emmission properties of this phenomenon.
All seems like a pretty damn interesting theory to me. Seeing that the origin of the solar wind and the oronal heating problem are the two most oustanding problems in conventional astronomy.
