Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[Michael Mozina]

I think MM has two things mixed up.

1) I established two line currents---which I'm happy to call a "circuit"---and these currents created magnetic fields. The fields allow you to draw field lines, like any vector field does. Those field lines are "there" (i.e. draw-able) whether or not there's any additional charge or current in the area.

2) MM is happy to do the exact equivalent of drawing field lines as long as he does it by following a test particle rather than by vector tracing. However, once he's put a test-particle in there he starts thinking that this particle's current somehow causes the magnetic field---which is wrong, this field comes from the large line currents we defined earlier, and the test particle is infinitesimal. And he insists on calling this particle's path a "circuit" rather than a "field line" because Alfven told him never to mention field lines---but they're really exactly the same thing.

You're missing a couple of key point here Ben IMO. The particle's path, infinitesimal as it may be, is in fact a form of "current flow". It may be quite small compared to the rest of the larger line currents, but it is still a physical form of 'current flow' as well.

3) He's also somehow come back to discussing the kinetic energy of the particles.

I'm just noting that the whole thing is kinetic in nature, even if they are small kinetic interaction, or even induction oriented processes.

Don't get confused, MM, we're discussing a system with a large magnetostatic potential energy and an unspecified (but generally extremely small) kinetic energy. Please also note that there's no plasma in this problem yet---just two wires and a guy waving a magnetometer---so the relevant physics comes from Maxwell et. al. and long, long predates Mr. Alfven.

Are you attempting to suggest that MR will occur in a pure vacuum? This seems like a rather critical statement. If that is so then you should be able to physically demonstrate it as being a unique form of energy transfer as separate from "particle reconnection" or "circuit reconnection". If not, then how do you know it is a "unique" form of energy exchange, and not something more mundane like ordinary "induction"?

 

[ben m]

What "literally" (physically) reconnects? Carrier particles as in induction, or ions and electrons as in "current flow"? Neither type of "reconnection" would be a form of "magnetic reconnection". Induction already has a proper name and it generates 'current flow'.

We gave you, repeatedly, the exact mainstream definition of "reconnection"---the "thing" that reconnects is the topology of lines drawn along the magnetic field vector. These lines happen to be the same lines followed by adiabatic test particles which you like to call "circuits". Neither the lines nor the circuits are objects in space, like bits of string, but that has never prevented us from drawing them and using math to describe them. You have acknowledged that these lines are drawable and that their topology can change---that's reconnection, and that's all it ever was, and that's why we've been calling you mistaken when you say "reconnection doesn't occur".

Let me ask you a simple question, can "magnetic reconnection" occur and release energy in a pure vacuum, devoid of all ions and electrons?

(a) Any change in a magnetic field can change the energy of that field; compute the integral of B^2 to see this. So, yes, changing magnetic fields generally change this potential energy---if there's no plasma around, open up your Freshman physics textbook to the chapters on (a) induction and (b) Lorentz forces (c) the relationship between force and work and (d) electric motors, where you will find bog-standard examples of magnetic energy being dumped into other forms of energy. Seriously, MM, this is extremely basic E&M. Once again, don't get the B^2 magnetic field energy confused with kinetic energy--it's different.

(b) If there's plasma around, some of this well-known magnetic field energy can be deposited in that plasma, just like it would in any other conductor. No surprise, no magic. The dynamics are much more complicated, raising the question "how much of this energy goes into the plasma". But there is no reason for that answer to be zero.

Or perhaps you're still arguing that magnetic fields don't carry energy at all? That was a mistake; if you acknowledge it clearly, it'll prevent future confusion.

 

[ben m]

You're missing a couple of key point here Ben IMO. The particle's path, infinitesimal as it may be, is in fact a form of "current flow". It may be quite small compared to the rest of the larger line currents, but it is still a physical form of 'current flow' as well.

So what? The path is exactly the same when I "trace" it with a 100-coulomb test charge, a 1.6x10^-19-coulomb test charge, in the limit where the test charge goes to zero, a pair or particles whose charges (and hence current) sum to zero, or a perfectly neutral magnetometer. The current that *you* want to use to trace the path is not a "key point", it's a pedagogical tool that I only brought up because you keep ignoring the existence of magnetometers.

I'm just noting that the whole thing is kinetic in nature, even if they are small kinetic interaction, or even induction oriented processes.

You are still wrong on this point. I don't know how many years back in your education you will have to go to unlearn this mistake, but please do it.

Are you attempting to suggest that MR will occur in a pure vacuum? This seems like a rather critical statement. If that is so then you should be able to physically demonstrate it as being a unique form of energy transfer as separate from "particle reconnection" or "circuit reconnection". If not, then how do you know it is a "unique" form of energy exchange, and not something more mundane like ordinary "induction"?

Magnetic reconnection is not "a form of energy transfer", it's a nearly-generic feature of changing magnetic fields. It so happens that these particular changing magnetic fields, like all changing magnetic fields, can affect charged particles including the charged particles in plasma and these effects happen to include energy transfers.

Physicists do use special cases to describe things, MM. "Induction" is anything where dB/dT = curl E is involved; this can happen in zillions of different geometries which get different names. Sometimes we call it self-induction, sometimes mutual induction, sometimes eddy currents, sometimes reactance, sometimes electromagnetic radiation, etc. Magnetic reconnection is just another such special case that gets its own name, but yes it's "ultimately" just an example of the same phenomenon.

 

[Michael Mozina]

(a) Any change in a magnetic field can change the energy of that field; compute the integral of B^2 to see this. So, yes, changing magnetic fields generally change this potential energy---if there's no plasma around,

Rather than spend forever posturing on this point, can you empirically demonstrate a "magnetic reconnection event" in the absence of any plasma or "current flow" in the chamber, yes or no? How is this event physically unique from:
A) particle reconnection at the level of particles rather than fields?
B) induction?
C) Circuit reconnection at the level of circuits?

 

[Michael Mozina]

From Cosmic Plasma, page 16.

11 .33. CONCLUSIONS ABOUT `FIELD LINE RECONNECTION' AND `MERGING' IN THE STATIONARY MAGNETOSPHERE
Our Gedanken experiment shows that neither the injection of one test particle, a small
number of test particles, or all of the solar wind particles call for a change in the Maxwellian concept of magnetic field lines . There is no need for `frozen-in' field lines moving with the plasma, still less for `field-line reconnection' or `magnetic merging' . The magnetic field always remains static and not a single field line is `disconnected' or `reconnected'. The energy of a charged particle is given by Equation (6) . There is no 'field-line reconnection' that can transfer energy to the particles or release energy in any other way. Other arguments against reconnection models are forwarded by Heikkila (1978). If the magnetic field varies with time, the geometry near the neutral points (points where B = 0) may change in a way that may be considered as the field lines disconnecting and reconnecting . It may be argued that in this case, the usual field-line reconnection formalism should be applicable . As will be shown in II .5 this is not correct. The field line reconnection theories are erroneous also in this case.

Either Alfven was wrong on this point, or you are wrong on this point. I understand Alfven's credentials on this topic, and while I'm not hung up on credentials per se, I'm unclear why you believe him to be in error on this point. Could you please clarify this point for me?

 

[Michael Mozina]

We gave you, repeatedly, the exact mainstream definition of "reconnection"---the "thing" that reconnects is the topology of lines drawn along the magnetic field vector.

The real question then becomes can you do this in a vacuum without electrons and protons, and if so, where is the paper so I can read about it? The topology can and would change as a result of a change in the "current flow". *If* you can demonstrate this topology change is possible without a flow of particles, then I'm all ears. If not, I'm rather skeptical that you can actually distinguish between small changes in current flow over time, versus some sort of "unique" process in plasma. An ordinary plasma ball can demonstrate a topology change in magnetic fields in plasma can be directly related to current flow changes in the plasma. How do you differentiate between ordinary current flow changes and "magnetic reconnection"?

 

[ben m]

The real question then becomes can you do this in a vacuum without electrons and protons, and if so, where is the paper so I can read about it? The topology can and would change as a result of a change in the "current flow". *If* you can demonstrate this topology change is possible without a flow of particles, then I'm all ears. If not, I'm rather skeptical that you can actually distinguish between small changes in current flow over time, versus some sort of "unique" process in plasma. An ordinary plasma ball can demonstrate a topology change in magnetic fields in plasma can be directly related to current flow changes in the plasma. How do you differentiate between ordinary current flow changes and "magnetic reconnection"?

We gave you an example---a few posts ago, it involved two wires. We focused our attention on a point which we labelled (1,1) where there was, in fact, no current. There were magnetic fields at this location. We measured those fields. The fields changed---due, as it so happens, to varying currents far away.

Magnetic fields change. Magnetic fields change even at locations, like (1,1) in our example, where there are no local currents at all. Understand?

Magnetic fields---indeed all vector fields---have many well-defined and measurable properties like "magnitude", "direction", "curl", "divergence", and "topology". Look in any Freshman vector calculus textbook for the definitions of these properties.

When the fields change these quantities also change. If the change happens to be "the magnitude changes and nothing else does", we call it "an increase in field strength." Do you object? Is "increase in field strength" some sort of math fairy or whatever? If the field happens to change direction we call it a "rotation". Sorry if this sounds utterly impossible, but it's true! Scientists can get pretty abstract about this stuff! If the change happens to include a change in the topology we call it a "reconnection".

Sorry, MM, you seem to be waiting for me to say "... and reconnection has these magic plasma properties and cause inflation and neutrinos". Sorry, MM, for the zillionth time: "reconnection" is just a change in the topology of a magnetic field. It happens all the time.

All magnetic field changes are capable of effecting charge carriers---you seem now to be enthusiastic about induction, good! That's progress!---and reconnection, being just a magnetic field change, also has this property.

I don't think Alfven ever intended to deny *that*, MM. I think he intended to deny that reconnection was (as other scientists argue) *particularly good* at a *certain kind* of particle acceleration.

 

[Reality Check]

The oscillation idea in general is theoretically "testable" via controlled experimentation. I'm not sure that it has been fully established that they oscillate from one to another as of this particular date. A lot of "missing" neutrino observations have been observed in controlled experiments but I"m not sure about the progress on establishing an actual oscillation observation from controlled experiments with a known and measured source. I haven't kept up however so feel free to set me straight.

Simply *assuming* that all the neutrino flavors we observe from the sun began as electron neutrinos remains to be seen IMO. I rather doubt that is the case in fact.

The oscillation has been tested via controlled experimentation using the controlled neutrinos from nuclear reactors.

This includes "progress on establishing an actual oscillation observation from controlled experiments with a known and measured source". If you read the links you would kow this.

We have observed fusion (remember hydrogen bombs?). Fusion always produces electron neutrinos. These are actually detected at the various neutrino observatories. The observation of oscillation resolves experimental obervation of 1/3 of the solar neutrinos predicted by theory.

 

[Dancing David]

If you read through Birkeland's terella (metal sphere) experiments, you'll find that when he charged the outside of the sphere as a cathode, the sphere discharged itself toward the chamber and carried particles along the way. He even describes having to clean the soot off the glass.

Sure makes sense, but this is not the sun and heliosphere.

He also noticed "loop like" structures formed at the "bumps" of his terella, and he could control their positioning based upon current flow and the magnetic field strength inside the sphere. I have one of his images side by side with a yohkoh x-ray image of the solar atmosphere during an active phase. These are not "coincidences".

Nope they are bunny pictures, until you scale them and relate them to solar processes.

The continuous flow of particles from the sun, the high energy discharges, the tornado like effects, all of these things are related to current flow and magnetic fields.

Are you saying that the Terrela created a flow of negative, positive and neutral particles?

That is what the solar wind is?

Bruce by the way documented the relationship between propagation speeds in the solar atmosphere and discharges on Earth. Bruce wrote extensively about discharge theory and his work and Birkeland's work and Alfven's work are all "first rate". Their work is also loaded with that "math stuff" everyone seems to like too. I'm more of a "show me" sort of guy, but the math is useful as well.

Unrelated distraction, we are talking about your model of the solar wind.

I'm assuming it's more like a "flow pattern", and by the time the protons reach a certain distance, many of them have picked up a spare electron from somewhere and cooled off a bit and are not necessarily charged at that point. I assume the heliosphere works a bit like the Earth's magnetosphere and that it is a moving and flowing process, not a stagnant wall of particles. I'm looking forward to the IBEX data and I'm looking forward to the IMAX movie coming here to the West Coast. That will be very enlightening on this topic specifically IMO.

Well then we can start with just the negative particles, so you are saying that the positive ions become neutral? So then what accounts for the positive particles in the solar wind.

I think you're assuming they *stay* positively charged forever which I do not, and that the heliosphere is semi-rigid in some way, which I do not.

Michael, there are negative, neutral and positive particles in the solar wind, I asked you how current flow accounts for a solar wind that shows all three, but we can start with the negative.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/12/03/swift-detects-x-ray-emissions-from-comets/

By the way, you can see the effect of the electron "pick-up" process in comet activity:



A billion watts is only possible because we live inside an electric universe and there is "current flow" from the surface to the heliosphere.

Okay, so now you are revising your earlier statement, I asked you the source of the solar wind, you said that electron were attracted to the heliosphere and that they dragged along the positive ions.

You are now changing your stance and avoiding the specifics of what you stated earlier. So then we can still ask some questions that show you are full of hot air.

Reference to the soot on the terella, really? that is just another bunny picture, it does not address the issue of the solar wind at all.

I take this as an admission that your original statement was in error. You have changed topic and avoided the question.

here is the deal Michael,

You stated that the electron 'drag along the positive ions'

but you are still avoiding what I asked because you don't want to answer!

I asked for how given your negative sun and positive heliosphere you could get a solar wind that has both positive and negative charges. (Not even considering the neutral charges)

So how does your model of the negative sun and positive heliosphere create a solar wind that has both negative and positive particles in it?

I am asking a very simple direct question, I can get the original quotes to demonstrate your statements but I would prefer for you to present your ideas.

So please to answer the questions:

So how does your model of the negative sun and positive heliosphere create a solar wind that has both negative and positive particles in it?


I would rather address your ideas with your involvement:

Here are the issues I have with your original statements:

1. Current flows cause the solar wind.
2. Specifically you stated it was current flow from the negative sun to the positive heliosphere.

This then raises the following question:
A. How is a positive ion going to be part of this current flow to generate the positive ions in the solar wind ?

to which you stated:

3. the electrons drag along the positive ions.

So here we go MM, the particles in the solar wind are getting momentum from somewhere, you sated that the source of this momentum was a current flow.

B. So electrons and negative ions acquire their momentum as they are drawn from the negative sun to the positive heliosphere: So what then keeps them moving, they have acquired momentum from moving towards a positive charge:
B. I- so they then approach the positive heliosphere and pass through it?
B. ii- is not the same force which attracted them to the sun to the heliosphere going to decrease their momentum as they pass through the heliosphere and move past it, and in fact is not the momentum imparted to them on their way to the heliosphere going to be counteracted as they move away from the heliosphere?
B. iii- Thus drawing them back into the heliosphere?


I am starting with just one set of the three particles in the solar wind, the negative ones. They still will get trapped in the heliosphere.

So let us start here shall wee?

Four specific questions about how your model provides for the negative particles in the solar wind.

I hope to learn more as we go.

 

[ben m]

"If the magnetic field varies with time, the geometry near the neutral points (points where B = 0) may change in a way that may be considered as the field lines disconnecting and reconnecting . It may be argued that in this case, the usual field-line reconnection formalism should be applicable . As will be shown in II .5 this is not correct. The field line reconnection theories are erroneous also in this case."

Did you even read what you quoted? Look at this: this is Alfven pointing out that a varying magnetic field may be considered as field lines reconnecting. This is what we have just given you 50 examples of, and this is what you have ignored or denied 50 times. Magnetic field can vary in a way which can be described (and is described, and which we described to you over and over) as field line reconnection. You've been arguing the exact opposite---that there's no such change at all, and no reasonable such description.

Alfven goes on to say that in a special case---and I think he's talking exclusively about self-magnetized plasmas---you do not find reconnection going on in practice. That has also not been your argument.

That's actually, perhaps, an argument worth having, but I have no desire to have it with someone who thinks that Maxwell's equations themselves explicitly forbid reconnection, that magnetic field energy is just charge carrier kinetic energy, and that any use of vector field equation can be insulted as some sort of fiction.

 

[ben m]

The oscillation idea in general is theoretically "testable" via controlled experimentation. I'm not sure that it has been fully established that they oscillate from one to another as of this particular date. A lot of "missing" neutrino observations have been observed in controlled experiments but I"m not sure about the progress on establishing an actual oscillation observation from controlled experiments with a known and measured source. I haven't kept up however so feel free to set me straight.

Simply *assuming* that all the neutrino flavors we observe from the sun began as electron neutrinos remains to be seen IMO. I rather doubt that is the case in fact.

We already went through all of this. Kamland (and other reactor experiments), Minos and K2K (and other accelerator experiments) have explicitly-controlled manmade neutrino sources; atmospheric neutrinos (SuperK, SNO, IMB, etc.) use a *local* natural source which we can measure both before and after it oscillates (see SNO's most recent paper).
SNO doesn't "assume" that solar neutrinos have electron, muon, or tau flavor; it sees the sum of all three.

Did you read any of this? No, you just restated the fact that you "have doubts".

 

[brantc]

I see you are back, but quoting something is not answering the question Brantc, I ask it simply so respond to the questions:

1. MM stated that the electrons were moving towards the positively charged heliosphere.
2. MM also stated that the electrons were 'dragging' the positive ions towards the heliosphere.

Which is fine both these statements seem to be okay.

The question which is you could answer simply (and then we can expand is this):

If there positive ions are positively charged (which I assume is why they are called positive ions) are they not going to be repelled by the positive charge of the heliosphere, proportionate to the inverse of their distance from the heliosphere?

Yes. I think that you can have potential gradients and that may be the driving force. The heliospheric termination shock has a higher potential of electron attraction from what I can see. The gradient appears to be about 3.4 MeV... Or that could be the energy of the protons accelerated inward by the double layer.

"Voyager 1 Explores the Termination Shock Region and the Heliosheath Beyond"
"Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock- The shock is a steady source of low-energy protons with an energy spectrum ~E–1.41 ± 0.15 from 0.5 to ~3.5 megaelectron volts, consistent with a weak termination shock having a solar wind velocity jump ratio . However, in contradiction to many predictions, the intensity of anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) helium did not peak at the shock, indicating that the ACR source is not in the shock region local to Voyager 1. The intensities of ~10–megaelectron volt electrons, ACRs, and galactic cosmic rays have steadily increased since late 2004 as the effects of solar modulation have decreased."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5743/2017

1100 eV (about 500 km/s solar wind speed)
The solar wind speed is high (800 km/s) over coronal holes and low (300 km/s) over streamers

"An estimation of the solar wind speed in the vicinity of the Sun is carried out using the initial speed and acceleration of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that appeared close to the solar limb. A linear relationship was found between the initial acceleration and the speed of the limb CMEs. It appears that a dragging force is acting on the CMEs, depending on the speed difference between the CMEs and the ambient plasma. The ambient solar wind speed within 20 solar radii estimated from low-latitude CMEs during 1998–2003 ranged from 100 to 700 km s−1, while the solar wind speed measured at 1 AU ranged from 300 to 700 km s−1. The estimated solar wind speeds in the vicinity of the Sun sometimes agreed with the simultaneous in situ measurements at 1 AU, but in other periods they were slower than the speeds measured at 1 AU. It is suggested that most of the time the low-latitude solar wind completes accelerating within 20 solar radii, but occasionally additional acceleration is present beyond 20 solar radii."
http://jpsj.ipap.jp/link?JPSJ/67/3991/

I assume you are smart enough to answer the question, it was not how can the electrons drag along the positive ions, it was 'what keeps the positive ions moving towards and past the positively charged heliosphere'?

Well as I said it has something to do with the potential gradients. As you can see there is a whole system. The EU system has the sun as the anode. I'm not 100% convinced that is the case. It may be the cathode.
In any case the acceleration of the solar wind has to do with potential gradients(electrical, not necessarily electrostatic); not flinging or impulsive blasts, i.e. mechanical.

My personal conclusions of the operation of the sun are further out than most so I will refrain from reciting them.

However I believe it is a combination of thermionic emission from the solar surface, double layer acceleration to about 20 SR and then a steady gradient, according to observations.

MM's theory seems to be violating Coulomb’s law, and it does not involve QM effects.

That paper looks interesting but maybe you could explain how it is related to the question I asked.

Unless you are here to play the standard PC game which is to mention irrelevant points and not answer direct questions.

The paper is relevant because it is a study on plasma stream acceleration of ions from the cathode(which may be a good model-solar surface). The mechanism of interest is longitudinal acceleration from a cathode that is not accounted for in standard physics.

Work has been busy. Havent had time to really follow up on this.

 

[brantc]

Magnetic reconnection is not "a form of energy transfer", it's a nearly-generic feature of changing magnetic fields. It so happens that these particular changing magnetic fields, like all changing magnetic fields, can affect charged particles including the charged particles in plasma and these effects happen to include energy transfers.

Physicists do use special cases to describe things, MM. "Induction" is anything where dB/dT = curl E is involved; this can happen in zillions of different geometries which get different names. Sometimes we call it self-induction, sometimes mutual induction, sometimes eddy currents, sometimes reactance, sometimes electromagnetic radiation, etc. Magnetic reconnection is just another such special case that gets its own name, but yes it's "ultimately" just an example of the same phenomenon.

The thing that is actually reconnecting is the vector description of the magnetic field. The magnetic field is actually following the current flow.
As the current flow reforms in a new configuration the magnetic field follows it and the vectors reconnect.

The vector description tells you really nothing about what happened in between. You need to look at the flow of particles to tell you the cause.

Yes, the magnetic field affects the particles in that it forces them into a tube like shape and causes them to gyrate and if it is a changing in time field, it will move them. It is the potential across(from end to end) the tube that causes the particles to move down the tube and the magnetic field made by the moving particles that constricts the tube. 2 of these tubes next to each other are the precursor to a reconnection.

It is variations in this particle flow that cause this "reconnection". The flux transfer events etc....

 

[Dancing David]

Yes. I think that you can have potential gradients and that may be the driving force. The heliospheric termination shock has a higher potential of electron attraction from what I can see. The gradient appears to be about 3.4 MeV... Or that could be the energy of the protons accelerated inward by the double layer.

"Voyager 1 Explores the Termination Shock Region and the Heliosheath Beyond"
"Voyager 1 crossed the termination shock- The shock is a steady source of low-energy protons with an energy spectrum ~E–1.41 ± 0.15 from 0.5 to ~3.5 megaelectron volts, consistent with a weak termination shock having a solar wind velocity jump ratio . However, in contradiction to many predictions, the intensity of anomalous cosmic ray (ACR) helium did not peak at the shock, indicating that the ACR source is not in the shock region local to Voyager 1. The intensities of ~10–megaelectron volt electrons, ACRs, and galactic cosmic rays have steadily increased since late 2004 as the effects of solar modulation have decreased."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5743/2017

1100 eV (about 500 km/s solar wind speed)
The solar wind speed is high (800 km/s) over coronal holes and low (300 km/s) over streamers

"An estimation of the solar wind speed in the vicinity of the Sun is carried out using the initial speed and acceleration of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that appeared close to the solar limb. A linear relationship was found between the initial acceleration and the speed of the limb CMEs. It appears that a dragging force is acting on the CMEs, depending on the speed difference between the CMEs and the ambient plasma. The ambient solar wind speed within 20 solar radii estimated from low-latitude CMEs during 1998–2003 ranged from 100 to 700 km s−1, while the solar wind speed measured at 1 AU ranged from 300 to 700 km s−1. The estimated solar wind speeds in the vicinity of the Sun sometimes agreed with the simultaneous in situ measurements at 1 AU, but in other periods they were slower than the speeds measured at 1 AU. It is suggested that most of the time the low-latitude solar wind completes accelerating within 20 solar radii, but occasionally additional acceleration is present beyond 20 solar radii."
http://jpsj.ipap.jp/link?JPSJ/67/3991/




Well as I said it has something to do with the potential gradients. As you can see there is a whole system. The EU system has the sun as the anode. I'm not 100% convinced that is the case. It may be the cathode.
In any case the acceleration of the solar wind has to do with potential gradients(electrical, not necessarily electrostatic); not flinging or impulsive blasts, i.e. mechanical.

My personal conclusions of the operation of the sun are further out than most so I will refrain from reciting them.

However I believe it is a combination of thermionic emission from the solar surface, double layer acceleration to about 20 SR and then a steady gradient, according to observations.



The paper is relevant because it is a study on plasma stream acceleration of ions from the cathode(which may be a good model-solar surface). The mechanism of interest is longitudinal acceleration from a cathode that is not accounted for in standard physics.

Work has been busy. Havent had time to really follow up on this.

Hi Brantc,

You have again totaly ignored the point, I have seen most of these articles before and they all suffer from the same problem in terms of explaining the electric sun and the production of the 'solar wind'.

There are three kinds of partciles in the solar wind, and you are just ignoring the fact that a model that is driven by electric currents and charges is not going to produce a solar wind with all three states.

So please address the issues of the solar wind, do not hide behind terms, the catode experiment is not applicable to the sun, you have not showns a cathode anode to exist in the solar system.

the issue exists and you seem to be ignoring it:

1. A system that moves negative ions will move positive ions the opposite way..

2. Any system that involves charge differentials will become neutral with time, unless continually recharged.

3. Even if there is a mechanism for moving negative ions it will draw them to a steady state in terms of position in that they will reach a point as in MM heliosphere that they pass and the same charge that drew them forward will draw them backwards.

‘I think that you can have potential gradients and that may be the driving force.”

Yes you may but they will have an opposite effect on opposite charges. And if the heliosphere has a higher electron attraction it will have a higher repelling of positive ions. The solar wind has both.

‘In any case the acceleration of the solar wind has to do with potential gradients(electrical, not necessarily electrostatic); not flinging or impulsive blasts, i.e. mechanical.’

And again it is a wind of all three states of charge.

You keep ignoring that, it will act opposite on opposite charges, yet the solar wind has positive and negative ions.

Now please don’t start hiding behind ambi-plasma.

 

[ben m]

The thing that is actually reconnecting is the vector description of the magnetic field.

Yes. Can you explain to MM that this is what "magnetic reconnection" means?

The magnetic field is actually following the current flow. As the current flow reforms in a new configuration the magnetic field follows it and the vectors reconnect.

The vector description tells you really nothing about what happened in between. You need to look at the flow of particles to tell you the cause.

The magnetic field is NOT "following the current flow". The magnetic field direction is substantially orthogonal (perpendicular) to the current direction, extends far beyond the current, and is described by curl B = J + dE/dt.

This sounds like you're making a mistake that MM also makes. The magnetic field is a consequence of the current flow but they're not the same thing.[/B] A current way in front of me, flowing to my left, will generate a magnetic field at my location ... pointing up. A current going in a straight line makes a magnetic field, nearby, going around in circles. And current configurations which move around gently but smoothly can generate, elsewhere, magnetic field configurations which discontinuously change topology. The explicit example I gave, with the two wires, involved no topology changes in the current sources, but gave a topology change in the magnetic field.

Under some circumstances, if you generate a magnetic field (using some source current) and then release some charged particles within it, the particles will follow trajectories which happen to be the same as the field lines. You and MM seem to think that these particles are the most important thing going on in the system. You seem to think:

1. they always carry current. They don't; these charges could well be absent, or infinitesimal, or (more likely) charge neutral, or uncorrelated with the magnetic field strength. If they do carry current, this is part of the current Birkeland was talking about.
2. these currents are somehow the same thing as, or interchangeable with, or generating or sustaining, the magnetic field itself, which they're not. The currents are J. The magnetic field is B. Curl B = J + dE/dt.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Solar Corona Redux

Slightly modifying Mozina's quote to reference the ADS page for the paper ...

I'd like you to read through this paper Tim ...
Observational evidence for return currents in solar flare loops; Battaglia & Benz, Astronomy and Astrophysics 487(1): 337-344, August 2008

OK, I have read it.

and consider the following: Electrical discharges occur in the Earth's atmosphere and release gamma rays in the process. Why would you not consider the single most obvious explanation for these high energy photons? The plasma is "current carrying" inside coronal loops, just as an ordinary plasma filament is 'current carrying'.

Other than the fact that the paper you reference talks about currents, I see no connection at all between it and what you have asked here. Furthermore, I have already given you an explicit answer to the question, which answer is not at all modified by the paper. I don't like to repeat myself, as it seems I should not have to, but I will now, and perhaps inject a bit more detail.

The paper you reference, Battaglia & Benz, refers to RHESSI observations of broadband gamma rays. The gamma rays you reference in your CNO paper are all narrow line emission features. In both cases, Sun & Earth, the broadband gamma rays are certainly due to accelerated electrons, and most likely related to electrical currents & electrical discharges. The narrow line are due to well known emission mechanisms such as: neutron capture, positron annihilation and nuclear relaxation. I have never held any opinion other than what I have said here, since becoming a physicist many years ago, and I can think of nothing to change my mind that appears in the Battaglia & Benz paper. But I suspect you never realized that I would accept electrical currents as the source for broadband gamma rays, simply because you never realized that electric fields & electric currents flowing in the solar (and generally stellar) photosphere & corona & etc. are very much mainstream, standard solar (and stellar) model features. Indeed, how can one imagine a stellar atmosphere that does not have electric currents flowing in it? That has never been in dispute, at least not by me.

And now ...

IMO you and I *both* require a discharge to fully explain these events. These neutron capture signatures in particular are most easily explained in discharge activity.

I don't think so. Just because there is an electric current does not mean that there is a "discharge" in the sense of the usual electric sun activity. Consider, for instance, this from Battaglia & Benz:

We assume that the electrons are accelerated in the coronal source region. When a beam of electrons, which is not balanced by an equal beam of ions, a return current prevents charge build-up and the induction of a beam associated magnetic field. In the return current, thermal electrons move towards the coronal source. Since their velocity is relatively small, they collide with background ions and cause resistivity. Ohm's Law then implies the presence of an electric field in the downward direction.
Battaglia & Benz, preprint page 4.
​

You can't "discharge" if you don't "charge" in the first place, and as Battaglia & Benz rather explicitly point out, their scenario "prevents charge build-up", which means there is no "charge" which means there can't be a "discharge". As for where the beam (or current) that induces the return current comes from, Battaglia & Benz say only "We assume that the electrons are accelerated in the coronal source region", without specifying how they get accelerated.

The particle temperature is high because the particles get accelerated to high velocities (which is after all, the definition of particle temperature). So it's the acceleration that causes both the initial current and the high temperature, rather than the current being the cause of the high temperature. Now, Battaglia & Benz do say:

Transport effects by return currents constitute a considerable energy input by Ohmic heating into the loop outside the acceleration region.
Battaglia & Benz, last paragraph.
​

Clearly the word "considerable" is open to considerable interpretation. Do we need the Ohmic heating to account for the neutron capture signature? Maybe, maybe not. There is no mention of narrow line observations at the same time, so we don't know how the broadband & narrow line emission correlate for the study events. But we do know that the Battaglia & Benz return current scenario worked for only 2 out of 5 observed events, because they said so (preprint, page 8, ... "Both cases (out of five) ... ")

I think you seriously exaggerate the value of "discharge" in understanding stars & the sun. As I see it, the standard physics tells us that the magnetic field comes first, and the significant electric fields are all induced by the variable magnetic fields (there are insignificant electric fields generated by other mechanical means of charge separation). But electric sun/star physics tells us that the electric field comes first, and the significant magnetic fields are induced by the variable electric fields. To me, the former makes obvious good sense, while the later seems absurd.

There are only two basic mechanisms I can think of which result in an electric field: (1) separation of opposite signed charges, and (2) induction by a variable magnetic field (Faraday's Law). If I am overlooking something, by all means let me know. Now, since we are asking where the electric field comes from in the first place, it's cheating to say that charges are separated by an electric field. There are ways to separate charges by purely mechanical means, since electrons are significantly less massive than protons. So, for instance, in a stellar interior, one would expect a charge imbalance to occur as heavier protons tend to settle in the gravitational potential of the star. Eddington knew this back in 1926, and even calculated the magnitude of the charge imbalance: "This corresponds to a deficiency of one electron in every million tons of matter" (The Internal Constitution of the Stars, page 273). This is clearly insufficient to be the energy driver of a star, and modern calculations have not significantly altered Eddington's conclusion that the electric force is "absurdly weak".

So, electric fields & electric currents in & around the sun are very mainstream concepts, well represented in the literature. Amazingly, even in the mainstream models, we expect the sun & stars to carry relatively small, net positive charges (i.e., Neslusan, 2001), because protons are heavier than electrons and so electrons escape the sun more easily. It's all about which field is the primary driver. Is it the electric field or is it the magnetic field? There is no physical justification for the electric star model with electric fields being primary, whereas the standard model with magnetic fields being primary is very well supported by extensive physics.

As for the source of the Sun's heat, "acceleration" of the solar wind & corona is in the sense of "speeding up". But Ohmic heating is energy lost by slowing down. We don't create a fast solar wind and super hot corona by making the particles slow down. So I think we need a better source of energy.

 

[Dancing David]

Thanks TT.

Wow.

 

[brantc]

I think you seriously exaggerate the value of "discharge" in understanding stars & the sun. As I see it, the standard physics tells us that the magnetic field comes first, and the significant electric fields are all induced by the variable magnetic fields (there are insignificant electric fields generated by other mechanical means of charge separation). But electric sun/star physics tells us that the electric field comes first, and the significant magnetic fields are induced by the variable electric fields. To me, the former makes obvious good sense, while the later seems absurd.

No, that is incorrect.

Magnetic fields are induced by the movement of charges in a electric field gradient. Like the one across a (neutral matter)wire flowing current.

Unless your saying that magnetic fields come from some other cause besides moving changes, like rotating quarks..... And that all plasma is neutral across all distances...

Go back to the beginning of your universe. Where did the first magnetic field come from?

How do you generate an EM field or just a magnetic field(besides a bar magnet which is not internally variable).

What does basic electronics and electricity say about the generation of magnetic fields? The strongest magnets on earth are electromagnets...

In the analysis of a circuit, the magnetic field(Ammeter mostly) is used to tell you what about the circuit?

Do magnetic fields stay frozen into a resistive(not super conducting) plasma over long time scales?

Are fluid metal dynamos(earth, sun, the blackhole SgR*A?) the only source of magnetic fields that run the whole universe???? They still rely on eddy currents(moving charges), or conduction band transfers I think you called it.......

 

[ben m]

Magnetic fields are induced by the movement of charges in a electric field gradient. Like the one across a (neutral matter)wire flowing current.

Magnetic fields are induced by electric current or by a changing electric field. Current is not always caused by an electric field; mechanical forces (as in convection-driven dynamos, or Van de Graff generators), kinetic effects, and other non-Ohmic currents can and do occur. (It's never caused by a "field gradient"---you meant "potential gradient"). Anyway, electric current is not the same thing as "movement of charges", since you can have moving charges and no current.

You can take a plasma with no magnetic field in it---you can impose a magnetic field on it from outside. The plasma will respond, but it's perfectly fair in these cases to say that "the magnetic field comes first".

 

[Tim Thompson]

Magnetic fields

Magnetic fields are induced by the movement of charges in a electric field gradient. Like the one across a (neutral matter) wire flowing current.

Well, to start with, "gradient" implies an electric field that is variable as a function of location. But of course an electric field that is constant will provide the EMF for an electric current, so you use the word "gradient" improperly here.

Indeed, if you have an electric current, then you will get a magnetic field, wrapped around the current in a solenoidal shape (Amperes Law). However, if you are trying to tell me that's the only way to get magnetic fields, then I will respond that you are quite wrong.

The motion of a charge neutral plasma, in the total absence of any electric field, will generate a magnetic field. That's the whole point of saying that the magnetic field "comes first". If you have a plasma, but no global electric field, then the motion of that plasma will generate a global magnetic field (of course there are microscopic electric fields, in close proximity to the individual electrically charged particles). We know that happens. The laws of physics demand it, and observation confirms it.

Unless your saying ... that all plasma is neutral across all distances ...

Of course not all plasma is neutral. But most astrophysical plasma is in fact charge neutral over macroscopic distance scales.

Go back to the beginning of your universe. Where did the first magnetic field come from?

Nobody knows for sure, but most likely it was generated in the quark plasma of the infant universe (i.e., Díaz-Gil, et al., 2008; de Souza & Opher, 2008; Kunze, 2008; Díaz-Gil, et al., 2007, and etc.)

Do magnetic fields stay frozen into a resistive (not super conducting) plasma over long time scales?

That depends on what "long time scales" mean. The mobility of the magnetic field depends on the conductivity of the plasma. The field is literally "frozen in" to the plasma only in the ideal case of zero resistivity, but of course that is not physically interesting except as an approximation. The real question you should be asking is whether or not the time scale for diffusion of the field through the plasma is long compared to the time scale of whatever physical phenomenon you are interested in. If the physical phenomenon is faster than the diffusion time scale, then the field is "frozen in" to the plasma for that case. If the the physical phenomenon is slower than the diffusion time scale, then the field is not "frozen in" to the plasma.

The "freezing" of a magnetic field in a plasma is not an all or nothing affair, like on & off, frozen or not frozen. Rather, the freezing is only an approximation, and depends entirely on the time scale of interest for any give case. The same field in the same plasma might be "frozen" for one purpose, but "not frozen" for another purpose. This is all standard plasma physics, explained in any textbook on the subject.

Are fluid metal dynamos (earth, sun, the blackhole SgR*A?) the only source of magnetic fields that run the whole universe???? They still rely on eddy currents (moving charges), or conduction band transfers I think you called it ...

Dynamos, probably yes they are, although most are of course not fluid metal dynamos. Nobody ever said that magnetic fields are independent of charged particles. What we do say is that the classical electric currents, as in pure streams of electrons (or protons or other charged particles), are not the only way to generate magnetic fields, and that indeed most of the magnetic fields in the cosmos are not generated by such currents.