Merged Electric Sun Theory (Split from: CME's, active regions and high energy flares)

[Michael Mozina]

Semantics, semantics. This thread is a joke.

Indeed. It's been a denial-go-round for months now. Welcome to the conversation by the way.

MM the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence that solar flares are electrical discharges consistent with some kind of electric sun or electric universe model.

Indeed, but then we must first agree on what a "discharge" is, and that seems to take MONTHS around here.

So far it has been an epic fail on your part.

Yep. I let them get away with murder. We're done now however with the denial go round.

All you like doing is arguing over minor details.

Minor details? Excuse me? The "definition" they evidently pulled out of their back pocked *PRECLUDES* any sort of "discharge" from occurring in a "conductor". There's no "in between". Of course not a single one of them can provide a published physics definition of an electrical discharge that supports *ANY* of their (false) claims.

It seems to me like incredibly bad manners on your part.

Well, compared to being a called or compared to a lying, dishonest, "nutter", crackpot crank every single day for months on end, I assure you my "manners" have been much better than my detractors.

Sorry for making it personal, but after 1000's of posts, that's all I can conclude.

Well, why should you be any different. "Personal" seems to be all anyone is interested in around here IMO.

A number of knowledgeable posters have made a good effort to dialogue with you about science,

Other than The Man, and few "mostly lurkers", who would those "knowledgeable posters" be? For almost two solid months now we've been stuck on a denial-go-round because GM and RC kept claiming a discharge couldn't occur in a plasma/conductor. Not a single "knowledgeable poster" set them straight (besides EU proponents). The first "knowledgeable" post I saw related to the difference between current and a discharge was posted by The Man, and I don't think he really meant to really even get that deeply involved in the conversation quite honestly. I was just thrilled to see that *SOMEONE* understood the difference.

but all you've ever done is cr&p on anyone who's shown the slightess bit of disagreement with your point of view.

IMO that isn't true. There are many posters on this website that I respect and that I get along with. We don't snipe much at each other and things go pretty smoothly overall. There are a few however that have gone out of their way to harass me for months on end rather than address the PUBLISHED MATERIALS. That tends to "set me off" sometimes, but hey, we're all human.

 

[tusenfem]

Yet for two months you did *ABSOLUTELY* nothing with that degree in terms of setting the record straight about 'discharges' in a "plasma". Why not?

Because, it has been clearly shown that over the years the meaning of discharge has changed, and even contemporary authors use different definitions of discharge, and therefore discharge is a useless word in this whole discussion.

I don't think so. I think the term "discharge" is the most correct. It's ultimately a release of stored EM energy, aka an ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE *IN A PLASMA*!

And because "discharge" is the most correct, I guess that is the reason why there are zero papers on solar physics mentioning the word "discharge" since the late 70s or so.
Aside from that, when one looks at atmospheric/planetary physics, then suddenly the word "discharge" pops up in lots and lots of papers, with respect to lightning and sprites etc. Strange, that so many scientists disagree with you on the usage of discharge.

Please let it be noted that instead of talking about science, maybe address the MISTAKES he makes in simple plasma physics (like "currents running through the plasma creates a magnetic field that becomes aligned with the current", Alfvén turning around in his grave) he keeps on looking for the useless discussion of a definition of a word that does not add anything to the discussion.

 

[tusenfem]

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1967SoPh....1..220A

FYI, this is probably one of the earliest papers on this topic that was published by Carlqvist and Alfven. It pretty much explains the entire process.

As we cannot expect MM to actually discuss the relevance of this 45 year old paper, let's look at it.

The important part starts at section 4 "Circuit Interruption," where it is mentioned that:

An inductive circuit in which a current exists has a general tendency to "explode". This means that if we try to interrupt the current at a certain point, the whole magnetic energy of the circuit tends to be dissipated at that point.
[then some examples, last example mercury rectifier in circuit]
If then the current through the mercury plasma exceeds a certain limit which is essentially given by the density of the plasma and the geometry of the rectifier, a sort of explosion occurs. Under certain conditions most of the magnetic energy of the circuit is suddenly released in a high impedance region.

(my bold) Now, it would fall onto MM to explain what a sort of and what certain conditions are.

Then in section 5 "Maximum Current Through a Plasma" has a discussion of the mercury rectifier. The current is flowing through the mercury plasma at 10^-3 Torr and cannot exceed a certain value, as mentioned above. The time scale of the current interruption is the inductive time scale: τ≈LI/V, for the rectifier this is about 10^-5 seconds.

Now, this may or may not be appropriate for solar flares.

Then in section 6 "The Disruption of the Current" is not really informative, and only says that for strong currents the plasma can be considered as a vacuum diode, and the Langmuir limit for current in a vacuum diode is given.

Then we get to section 7 "Instability of a Current in a Completely Ionized Gas." They take a normal plasma with n_e = n_i = n and the current is given by i = -e n v_e, where v_e is the electron velocity. And then they assume a perturbation of the density n (a small dip) and thus the v_e needs to increase to keep the current density i flowing and this gives rise to evacuation of the region, through the creation of an electric field. The ions also are expelled from this region. Actually this can be seen as the creation of a double double layer. From this simple model, one can derive a stability criterion for the plasma, the well known fact that when the drift velocity of the particles in the current exceeds the thermal velocity the plasma becomes unstable.

[latex]v_e^2 > \frac{kT_i}{m_e} \sim v_{th}[/latex]

Section 8 "Application to Solar Conditions" and then it becomes speculative, not surprising, because of the age of this paper. They take a loop above the surface of the Sun and then close it below the surface. No problem there.

In the layers below the photosphere the density is so high tht the current behaves in the same way as in an ordinary conductor. In the high layers of the solar atmosphere the current exists in a plasma of rather low density, and we cannot exclude the possibility of a disruption if the maximum plasma current is exceeded.

Then they discuss some generalities about the complicated structure of the fields and the currents inferred from the Zeeman effect etc. Then assuming that there is a pinch effect they say:

I fact with n = 10⁸ cm^-3 and T = 10⁶ K, a local constriction to a radius of the order of 10⁶ cm is necessary to reach the disruption current given by Eq. (7).

However, the question is if this is reached and what actually happens, as there are many flow driven instabilities. For one, there is the Buneman instability (1958, 1959) which tends to increase the velocity spread in v_th, i.e. heating the plasma so that the ratio v_e/v_th decreases, stabilizing the plasma again. (For a full overview of instabilities see Melrose: Instabilities in Space and Laboratory Plasmas, an excellent book, if you're not afraid of equations.)

So, although this is a very nice and straightforward idea by A&C, it is probably too simple to actually work on the Sun. This is not criticism on A&C per se, as at the time that this model was developed the field of plasma physics was not so well developed yet. And indeed, the energy estimated and the time scale at which it is released seems to agree roughly with what is observed, and that is to be expected, but if the trigger mechanism is as they describe is to be questioned (IMHO).

 

[DSo]

IMO that isn't true. There are many posters on this website that I respect and that I get along with. We don't snipe much at each other and things go pretty smoothly overall. There are a few however that have gone out of their way to harass me for months on end rather than address the PUBLISHED MATERIALS. That tends to "set me off" sometimes, but hey, we're all human.

In the back of my mind I was refering to your treatment of tusenfem. I think the record shows a number of posts where you were friendly with him/her. But as soon as he/she presented some science that was contrary to your beliefs you went all reality TV on him/her and cr&pped all over his/her posts without addressing the science contained.

Bad manners ... terrible for selling your point of view ... and leads one to believe that this all about getting in an argument for you and not about the truth.

 

[Michael Mozina]

In the back of my mind I was refering to your treatment of tusenfem. I think the record shows a number of posts where you were friendly with him/her. But as soon as he/she presented some science that was contrary to your beliefs you went all reality TV on him/her and cr&pped all over his/her posts without addressing the science contained.

At *ANY* point during the last two months, t could have *ENDED* this pointless denial-go-round and should have ended this denial-go-round a long time ago. Instead, he's sat back, JOINED the effort to ignore the distinction between current and a discharge, and essentially joined the ignorance parade! The whole last two months was pointless because t continues (to this day AFAIK) to blur and ignore the distinction between a discharge and a current. In fact he continues to deny the validity of the circuit orientation that Alfven used, which means he believes himself to be more adept at plasma physics than Alfven, more knowledgeable on this topic than Alfven, and yet he can't tell the difference between a current and discharge and/or sat there for two months and refused to do the "right" thing and help clarify any confusion.

Bad manners ... terrible for selling your point of view ... and leads one to believe that this all about getting in an argument for you and not about the truth.

Bad manners is making accusations and/or claims without presenting evidence to support the idea. For two months the WHOLE pack has claimed I have MISUSED or somehow used a NONSTANDARD definition of a discharge, but the whole pack has *REFUSED* to provide a published physics definition of an electrical discharge. Talk about bad manners and not telling the truth!

 

[Zeuzzz]

Apologies for not really reading much of this thread first but I'll reply as best I can to what I think the main issues are.

It seems to me that whether or not one wishes to call the hot plasma an "electrical discharge" is not really the point. It is certainly a poor choice of words, designed to generate confusion in the absence of a constantly repeated definition. But the real issue is the physics that underlies the words. What physically is really happening is the point.

I believe that a discharge on the sun to produce flares would be a reference to the current disruption model for solar flares proposed a while ago by Alfven et al.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967SoPh....1..220A
Currents in the Solar Atmosphere and a Theory of Solar Flares
Journal: Solar Physics, Volume 1, Issue 2, pp.220-228

Sort of a much smaller version of their explanation for cosmic gamma ray bursts where they model a large-voltage, high-temperature plasma pinch discharge mechanism positing that many of the explosive events observed in cosmic physics are produced by disruptive discharges of electric double layers. The resulting large-voltage and high-temperature discharge column will radiate flaring energetic photons due to inverse compton scattering between the accelerated electrons and thermal photons, discharging plasma out where it will follow the curve of the magnetic field produced.

He rejects magnetic reconnection in favor of exploding double layers, even though physics rejects the latter in favor of the former.

Maxwells equations actually show that magnetic reconnection and current disruption are equivalent (in a very basic sense), so I think that much of this argument is just semantics. Even the effects of both are extremely similar, the differences between the two are very ambiguous. However current disruption has the advantage of being able to model actual real world particle kinetics from the ions in the currents and thus various other interactions, whereas the metaphysical field lines used to model magnetic reconnection can often lead to confusing models and deductions as people can very easily start to hypostatise their effects. And they seem to do this quite a lot.

He rejects the frozen flux approximation for magnetic fields in a plasma even though physics requires it.

Glad you said approximation, as that is exactly what it is. Frozen flux lines are a property of pseudoplasma (or ideal plasma) not real plasma. Plasmas are excellent conductors, they are not perfect conductors. Alfvén said,

"I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a
pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedagogical concept but a dangerous ‘pseudo pedagogical concept."


Unfortunately this was after the idea had become very popular.

As long as Mozina rejects these two critical concepts of physics, magnetic reconnection and the frozen flux approximation, then this discussion and all other similar discussions everywhere are doomed at once to become infinite loops of the same thing

How would you distinguish between current disruption and magnetic reconnection in solar flares?

And what difference to current models would the fact that field lines are never actually fully "frozen" in make, in your opinion?

 

[Perpetual Student]

"Essentially the currents running through the plasma creates a magnetic field that becomes aligned with the current. That magnetic field acts to "pinch" the plasma into "filaments", sometimes "tubular" filaments. The magnetic field around the filament acts to evacuate the regions around the filament, creating an insulating effect directly around the filament." _______Mozina

The more I try to interpret this comment, the more convinced I become that MM has no understanding whatsoever of the physics involved. How does a current "create a magnetic field that becomes aligned with the current" since a magnetic field created by a current forms in concentric circles around that current? How then does this "aligned" magnetic field "pinch" the plasma? How does it "evacuate regions around" a filament?
These comments demonstrate no relevance to or understanding of the gratuitous accompanying diagram. It seems to be merely a bold-faced snow job designed to create the illusion of science-talk.

 

[Vermonter]

So, Michael. As a lurker/occasional responder, I query this.

In your own words, what are your definitions for
(1) Discharge
(2) Current

I want (as I believe many others) to know how you personally define these two terms in this discussion. I believe this will go a long way to figuring out a common ground. I'm not looking for a reference or citation, I want to know how you, personally, define these two terms.

 

[Zeuzzz]

How does a current "create a magnetic field that becomes aligned with the current" since a magnetic field created by a current forms in concentric circles around that current?

A Birkeland current is a field aligned current. Trouble here is that "aligned" without reference to a direction or object is meaningless.

How then does this "aligned" magnetic field "pinch" the plasma?

http://www.plasma-universe.com/Pinch_(plasma_physics)

A pinch (sometimes called a knot) is the compression of an electrically conducting filament by magnetic forces. The conductor is usually a plasma, but could also be a solid or liquid metal. In a z-pinch, the current is axial (in the z direction in a cylindrical coordinate system) and the magnetic field azimuthal; in a theta-pinch, the current is azimuthal (in the theta direction in cylindrical coordinates) and the magnetic field is axial. The phenomenon may also be referred to as a "Bennett pinch"[1] (after Willard Harrison Bennett), "electromagnetic pinch"[2], "magnetic pinch"[3], "pinch effect"[4] or "plasma pinch".[5]

Pinches occur naturally in electrical discharges such as lightning bolts[6], the aurora[7], current sheets[8], and solar flares[9]. They are also produced in the laboratory, primarily for research into fusion power, but also by hobbyists.

How does it "evacuate regions around" a filament?

The pd created by the ions in the current.

These comments demonstrate no relevance to or understanding of the gratuitous accompanying diagram. It seems to be merely a bold-faced snow job designed to create the illusion of science-talk.

The above comments demonstrate no relevance to or understanding of the subject. It seems to be merely a bold-faced snow job designed to create the illusion of science-talk.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Because, it has been clearly shown that over the years the meaning of discharge has changed, and even contemporary authors use different definitions of discharge, and therefore discharge is a useless word in this whole discussion.

No, that is an UNSUPPORTED CLAIM that NONE of you have demonstrated with a PUBLISHED (in your case you need three or four PUBLISHED) works to demonstrate your case. To my knowledge you have YET to acknowledge the *PHYSICS DISTINCTION* between a current and a discharge. When can I expect you to do that, and provide SEVERAL PUBLISHED DEFINITION to support your claim?

 

[Michael Mozina]

So, Michael. As a lurker/occasional responder, I query this.

In your own words, what are your definitions for
(1) Discharge

For the record, I've already done that in surfer jargon, in several posts, and I've even messed it up and corrected myself too. How many times do we have to go through this?

The term *DISCHARGE* implies the *DISSIPATION* of STORED energy. In plasma, that can be either stored magnetic energy, or stored electric field energy, but it's essentially a dissipation of stored EM energy. The term "current" implies no such dissipation process, and could flow continuously for any period of time.

When can I expect their side to provide *PUBLISHED* definitions now? I've provide PUBLISHED ones, and I've put it in my own words as well. When I can expect them to demonstrate any of their NUMEROUS claims about my misuse of the term "discharge"?

 

[D'rok]

Because, it has been clearly shown that over the years the meaning of discharge has changed, and even contemporary authors use different definitions of discharge, and therefore discharge is a useless word in this whole discussion.

No, that is an UNSUPPORTED CLAIM that NONE of you have demonstrated with a PUBLISHED (in your case you need three or four PUBLISHED) works to demonstrate your case. To my knowledge you have YET to acknowledge the *PHYSICS DISTINCTION* between a current and a discharge. When can I expect you to do that, and provide SEVERAL PUBLISHED DEFINITION to support your claim?

FFS, Michael. Your lies are really irritating.

I note that MM just highlights magnetic energy, whereas, as usual, he forgets about the rest of the text.

Here is a very good paper (albeit a bit old, and therefore somewhat dated), but I think it is the first (and only?) paper that shows the deficits in the Carlqvist-Alfven model. MM will be happy as circuits are explicitly mentioned and papers that deal with circuit representation of various processes (e.g. by Spicer and by Ionson).

One of the things in the paper is that they discuss discharge models of solar flares, however, as far as I could see none of the models is actually labeled as such. I think we have to consider the section with models with parallel electric field as the part describing discharge models. Just below Eq. (26) this statement is made, making a difference between reconnection models and discharge models.

This shows the muddy waters we are dealing with: what do we call a discharge? Let's look at some of the definitions that we have come across here in the thread and some more:

Peratt: An electrical discharge is a sudden release of electric or magnetic stored energy. This generally occurs when the electromagnetic stress exceeds some threshold for breakdown that is usually determined by small scale properties of the energy transmission medium.

Dungey: The defining feature of a discharge in this context is the existence of a large current density. The electrons must reach at least relativistic energies ...

Oxford Reference (concise science dictionary): 2. The release of electric charge from a capacitor in an electric ciruit. 3. The passage of charge carriers through a gas at low pressure in ad discharge tube.

Alfvén: (Cosm. Eldy.) Traditionally a current through a gas is called a discharge.

Alfvén & Fälthammar: (Cosm. Eldy.) (no definition but (as in Alfvén) they say) Electric discharges in the laboratory are usually divided into two groups : non-sustained discharges, which depend upon an `external' ionizer to produce at least an essential part of the ions and electrons which carry the current, and self-sustained discharges, where the ionization is mainly produced by the discharge itself .

Alfvén: (Cosm. Pl.) does not even give a definition of what he means by a discharge, he just starts using the word.

Dictionary of Electronics: disruptive discharge Sudden, heavy current flow through a dielectric material when it fails completely under electric stress

And so we can go on and on and on.

So some want to define loosely, like Alfven just a "current through a gas" others in electronics want a dielectric to "feel completly under electric stress."

Doing a quick search on ADS on the literature concerning solar flares and electrical discharges (i.e. the abstract contains the words "solar flare electric discharge" I find that there are a total of 9 papers in peer reviewed journals, and the latest is from 1991 (which would be the Foukal & Hinata paper, that I already commented on a few pages back, the one that shows that the A&C double layer model is invalid in real solar prominences).

Now, it is pretty clear from the whole discussion here why one does not use the term discharge anymore in solar and space physics. The definition for a discharge is just all over the place, many an author just used her/his own definition (look at the list I gave in post 1441. This is clearly unworkable, say I accept Peratt's definition, then I read one of Dungey's papers, I see the word discharge and then I cannot find any of the general characteristics that Peratt (e.g. where is the break down of the medium?), Dungey just describes an increase in current.

(space/plasma/astro)physics is all about clarity, and that does not exist with this term discharge, which is a relic of the first half of the last century, where huge capacitor banks were used to study whatever electrical phenomena in the lab (basically the only sensible way to perform those experiments, when you need huge potential differences). But then you can discharge the capacitors e.g. through a metal, and see how it melts or you can drive it through a liquid (see e.g. the production of aluminium). Or you can send it through the air and create lightning in the lab. All very different ways of discharging a capacitor bank.

Therefore, we move away from such an ambiguous term, and replace it with clearer, more descriptive terms: electrostatic fields, induced electric fields, motional electric fields (see the paper by Foukal & Hinata where they specifically list these various electric fields and call any process with a parallel electric field a discharge), which are all related to specific structures and much less ambiguous than the term discharge.

Next time: A simple description of circuit reconnection how a hater views it and a believer cannot show it.

Are you just hoping that new lurkers won't look in the thread, all the while knowing full well that us veteran lurkers can easily point out your lies? That's a piss-poor strategy.

 

[Michael Mozina]

So, Michael. As a lurker/occasional responder, I query this.

In your own words, what are your definitions for
(1) Discharge
(2) Current

I want (as I believe many others) to know how you personally define these two terms in this discussion. I believe this will go a long way to figuring out a common ground. I'm not looking for a reference or citation, I want to know how you, personally, define these two terms.

I'll tell you what, I'll even relate the difference between current and a discharge right back to solar physics for you in terms of the data. A "current' produces pretty consistent outputs, whereas a "discharge" tends to produce "spikes", or variations in high energy photon output.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/plots/xray/20110120_xray.gif

If we look at today's GEOS x-ray data today, we see "spikes" in the red base line, specifically we see a 'minor' B class spike about an ago. The "current" in the coronal loops produces the baseline output we see in GOES, but the spikes are due to DISCHARGES (in flares). That change in current flow over time in a discharge is what produces those x-ray "spikes".

 

[Perpetual Student]

The very term *PUBLISHED* definition is utterly meaningless. Anyone can define and publish any term or phrase in any way they please. There is no magic about publishing. A real science dialog occurs when two or more scientists agree on a particular usage and discuss the science. They do not indulge themselves in endless babble about the words being used to describe some process. Move on!

 

[Michael Mozina]

FFS, Michael. Your lies are really irritating.

Are you just hoping that new lurkers won't look in the thread, all the while knowing full well that us veteran lurkers can easily point out your lies? That's a piss-poor strategy.

What lies? The fact that an author makes a "brief" introduction to the word "discharge" in their paper does *NOT* mean there isn't a *STANDARD SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION* that authors tend to simply take for granted!

I doubt in his *WILDEST* imagination that Aflven even expected there to be any great debate about the term 'discharge'. The fact he himself uses them term "a little' differently in two papers doesn't mean anything! He's assuming the reader has SOME understanding of electrical engineering and some understanding of the difference between a sustained current and a 'discharge'. Oy. This so dumb! Round and round the denial-go-round we go, where it will stop, nobody knows......

The *DISCHARGE* is what created that M class flare spike in the GEOS data that I predicted about 20 minutes before it occurred. The rest of the x-ray spectrum is due to CURRENT inside the coronal loops that can be sustained for days, even weeks per loop.

 

[dasmiller]

I'll tell you what, I'll even relate the difference between current and a discharge right back to solar physics for you in terms of the data. A "current' produces pretty consistent outputs, whereas a "discharge" tends to produce "spikes", or variations in high energy photon output.

For me, that description actually muddies the water. If I take a literal interpretation (which I'm sure you didn't intend), then a current is something that produces a steady output of high energy photons, and a discharge is something that produces a variable output of high energy photons.

And then neither of those words would necessarily involve the movement of charge carriers, and I'm pretty sure you want your definition of current to include movement of charge carriers.

 

[D'rok]

What lies? The fact that an author makes a "brief" introduction to the word "discharge" in their paper does *NOT* mean there isn't a *STANDARD SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION* that authors tend to simply take for granted!

I doubt in his *WILDEST* imagination that Aflven even expected there to be any great debate about the term 'discharge'. The fact he himself uses them term "a little' differently in two papers doesn't mean anything! He's assuming the reader has SOME understanding of electrical engineering and some understanding of the difference between a sustained current and a 'discharge'. Oy. This so dumb! Round and round the denial-go-round we go, where it will stop, nobody knows......

The *DISCHARGE* is what created that M class flare spike in the GEOS data that I predicted about 20 minutes before it occurred. The rest of the x-ray spectrum is due to CURRENT inside the coronal loops that can be sustained for days, even weeks per loop.

My post speaks for itself.

And your latest "blame everyone else for my own misunderstandings and incompetence" trick started immediately after your failure to deal with tusenfem's circuit reconnection post. As far as smokescreens go, this one really sucks.

You should probably give it up.

 

[Michael Mozina]

2. The release of electric charge from a capacitor in an electric ciruit.

In what physical way is that different than Peratt's definition?

 

[Michael Mozina]

My post speaks for itself.

And your latest "blame everyone else for my own misunderstandings and incompetence" trick started immediately after your failure to deal with tusenfem's circuit reconnection post. As far as smokescreens go, this one really sucks.

You should probably give it up.

Give what up? Give up hope that you will *EVER* accept a definition of a discharge in a plasma or provide one of your own to work with? I already gave up on that concept a long time ago. About the best I can do is show you how the Oxford Dictionary explains that RELEASE aspect and see if you'll EVER accept it. Care to explain how Peratt's definition is not inclusive and LIKE the Oxford definition?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Here's the problem D'rok. Their side made CLAIMS. They made FALSE claims. They never produced a SHRED of published support of those claims. They CLAIMED that a "discharge" could not occur in a conductor. That's a false claim. They claimed that discharge could not occur in a plasma because it's a conductor. That's a false claim. They claim I have misused the term "discharge" somehow, but that is also a "False claim". When did their side ever intend to admit these were "false claims" so we can move on? I've seen PS do that. I've seen t "sort of" do that, with all sorts of riders attached that blur the distinction between current and discharges *INTENTIONALLY*.

I've not seen ANY of the rest of them/you even admit that a discharge can happen in a plasma!