Reality Check said:
I at least read your responses (unlike Zeuzzz!). Your mention of synchrotron radiation reminded me of something that I have been mulling over.
I do have a question for you as someone whose is knowledgeable about astronomy. And maybe Zeuzzz can think about it too.
Perrat's plasma model needs galactic sized (in width) plasma filaments that are an average of a billion light years long.
Galaxies move and thus the filaments attached to them must also move. This means that galaxies can move through filaments; there can be near misses of galaxies and so collisions between their filaments; galaxies even collide (passing through each other or merging) ensuring that their filaments collide.
In addition galactic clusters that are packed with these galactic plasma filaments also collide (e.g. the Bullet Cluster).
My expectation is that all of these filament collisions cause shock waves and so would be easily seen as x-rays. Thus I would expect that the Bullet Cluster should be full of x-ray emitting galactic plasma filaments.
Am I right and are such x-rays seen?
A couple of small questions for Zeuzzz:
As mentioned - galaxies collide. As far as I can see galaxies on the same filaments can collide.
What happens to the electric current through the filaments?
For example 2 galaxies on the same filaments merge. This short-circuits the current. I would expect all of the galaxies in between the merged ones to at least change their galactic velocity curve(or need dark matter to be created).
Maybe the galaxies even stop spinning (what happens in Perrat's simulation when the current is turned off? - the "galaxies" certainly stop spinning in the plasmoid experiments)!
How do the filaments remain stable as the shock waves from the collisions travel through them?
An interesting set of questions, RC!
The first thing to note is that Peratt's model is (strongly) inconsistent with well-established^ astronomical observations of a great many kinds^^; this makes any consideration of your questions ones about a toy universe (or part of such) that we already know does not correspond to the one we live in (except, of course, at the PC word-salad handwaving level).
IIRC, Peratt's plasmas are highly, if not fully, ionised (no neutral atoms or molecules, no uncharged dust, etc), in which only electrons need be considered wrt emission or absorption.
Further, in his model -
pace Z, gravitational interactions are ignored (this is an aspect that needs further clarification, but I'm pretty sure gravity is ignored when it comes to galaxy-galaxy or galaxy-filament or filament-filament interactions). One consequence of this assumption is that it is not at all obvious that galaxy-galaxy, galaxy-filament, or filament-filament collisions can occur (it may well be that they cannot, if magnetic reconnection is impossible in his model, for example). So perhaps your question ends there?
Next, Peratt's model rests on the validity of certain scaling relationships ... but IIRC some key ones were either ignored or implicitly rejected. Examples? Well, synchrotron and free-free emission, for example, and - as you say - shocks. I'll explore this in more detail in later posts; it goes to the heart of your questions, concerning observables.
But perhaps we should take a step back and look at what the relevant astronomical observations are? Of galaxy clusters I mean, as we've already covered the key points concerning galaxies. Stay tuned!
One more aspect: do you remember Anaconda? the second point he wanted to focus discussion on? It had to do with double layers and electromagnetic acceleration, and it's highly relevant to your questions. Why? Because there's a whole other set of observations that may be very pertinent ... cosmic rays (can you see why?).
(to be continued)
^
in the sense of there being multiple, independent datasets which are published (and, in general, available for download from online catalogues). One giant caveat does need to be entered: if you implicitly or explicitly reject so many parts of standard, textbook physics (as MM and Sol88 do), then almost all of these observations need to be re-analysed within the framework of the physics that is accepted ... no surprise that this would be a massive undertaking! However, there is a critical corollary: unless and until such work is done, then the astronomical observations cannot be used for any purpose. Insofaras Z rejects some parts of textbook plasma physics (e.g. magnetic reconnection), his comments can also, on the whole, be set aside as little more than meaningless noise.
^^
some of which we've covered in this thread, and similar ones, but many (most?) of which we haven't begun to examine, not least because I, for one, am still waiting for Z to respond to some basic, must-answer-first questions on this topic
A little delayed - Easter provides a nice opportunity for a looong weekend! - but I hope you're still interested RC (even if Z - and Sol88? - has departed in the interim).
Let's start with
Evolution of the plasma universe. I - Double radio galaxies, quasars, and extragalactic jets, Peratt's 1986 paper that seems to contain the key concepts and reports most of the results (you can download a copy from one of the sources Z - and others - have given, if you don't have access to the IEEE site yourself).
As the title suggests, this paper is about the formation, and evolution, of "
double radio galaxies, quasars and extragalactic jets" (duh!)
In Peratt's model of the universe^ (or at least a very large part of the observable universe), these three classes of astronomical object arise when two "
galactic-sized Birkeland currents" interact; crudely, the currents are filaments, and they exhibit long-range attraction but short-range repulsion. Their interaction produces double-lobed radio sources with synchrotron radiation SEDs and plasma compression. As the interaction proceeds, elliptical and/or "
dust-lane" peculiar galaxies" are created at the centre (spiral galaxy formation is the subject of the second 1986 paper - I'll look at that later); the shape (morphology) of the emission regions, the SEDs of various parts of space where the interaction is happening, and the total "radio flux observed" change as the interaction proceeds.
To model these interactions, Peratt uses SPLASH and TRISTAN, which he says have been benchmarked against plasma experiments in the lab and observations of (Earth) magnetospheric phenomena (among others).
The start of part B in section VI (Scaling Simulations to Galactic Dimensions) is quite interesting; Peratt lists some six items that are required. One of the six is "
the gravitational force" ... but the simulations reported in this paper do not include it.
So, wrt the first of Peratt's two papers, the general answers to your questions are as follows (no particular order):
* galaxies do not move independently of filaments; various EM forces on filaments are the root cause of relative galaxy-galaxy motion
* galaxies form when filaments interact (collide) - the interaction produces an intense burst of synchrotron radiation (in a double lobed structure, typically) and later a galaxy forms at the centre
* shocks are not modelled
* clusters are not modelled.
It is important to remember that the universe Peratt is modelling is not the one we live in (while Peratt may have shown some consistency between his model and some astronomical observations, of selected objects, the narrowness of the scope of his tests is astonishing^^), so in one way it is irrelevant what the astronomical observations of galaxy clusters are (across the entire EM spectrum) ... even if Peratt had modelled them.
Oh, and a somewhat curious note: remember that to EU proponents Arp is a hero, not least because of his work purporting to show that quasars are 'local', and that galactic redshifts are not a reliable indicators of distance (per the Hubble relationship)? Well, the success of this Peratt paper in explaining "
the total magnitude of the radio flux observed" (one of Peratt's own requirements of the model) depends centrally on the "double radio galaxies" (and, later, quasars) being at their Hubble flow distances!
Strange it is that EU/PC proponents neglect to mention this ... perhaps a reflection of their critical thinking skills? or their weak grasp of astronomy?
Next, paper II, and a look at astronomical observations of galaxy clusters.
^
the last sentence before section III of this paper: "The remainder of this paper is concerned with what the signatures of existence would be to an observer situated within a nonhomogenous plasma universe consisting of galactic-sized Birkeland currents."
^^
but perhaps not surprising; for consistency with the totality of astronomical observations, Peratt would have some very difficult questions to answer, such as the nature of stars, how they form, what powers them ... and how it's possible to have billions of multi-billion year old stars in a galaxy that should have formed only a few tens of millions of years ago!
