"Electric Sun Verified"?? - In your dreams...

Shortly after I had prepared the response above, I received news of the 'official' spin being placed on the IBEX skymap announcement (See IBEX Results cause even more problems for the Electric Sun model):

Electric Sun Verified by Wal Thornhill

Not surprisingly, Thornhill claims the 'ribbon' seen by IBEX fits the 'Electric Stars' model perfectly.  This mission has been flying for six months yet NOWHERE do we find the EU 'prediction' of the IBEX skymaps, particularly not with any estimates of the fluxes that the instrument would detect.  Why doesn't Mr. Thornhill demonstrate his computation of the neutral atom fluxes?  If his model actually works, then this should be a straightforward step.  The IBEX data are freely available at the IBEX data archive.

First, let's take a look at some of Thornhill's statements.

Thornhill: “IBEX has discovered that the heliosheath is dominated not by the Sun but by the Galaxy’s magnetic field.” 

No. IBEX discovered that the energetic neutral atom flux is dominated by the galactic magnetic field.  The heliosheath itself would not exist if not for the outflowing solar wind.

Thornhill: “Comets are an electrical phenomenon where the comet nucleus is a negative cathode in the Sun’s plasma discharge. Examples of cometary stars are uncommon because stars are normally a positive anode in the galactic discharge.”

Laboratory cathodes and anodes form part of a complete circuit.  Where is the return circuit between the Sun and the comet?  If we see the comet, why don't we see the return path of the particles?  In the lab, the return circuit corresponds to the wires connecting the discharge tube to the power source.  And just where is the battery or generator that keeps the system energized?

Thornhill: The “open” helical magnetic fields discovered high above the Sun’s poles by the Ulysses spacecraft are supportive of Alfvén’s stellar circuit model.

“Open” field lines are lines that don't connect back to the source of the field.  This means the 'open' field lines cannot form a complete circuit, contrary to Thornhill's claim.  Thornhill's invocation of 'open' magnetic field lines puts him in contradiction with Don Scott who claims that there is no such thing as an 'open' magnetic field  (See Scott Rebuttal. IV.  'Open' Magnetic Fields).

Thornhill: Given the detail in this model we should expect, as more data comes in, that
researchers may find in the ENA “ribbon,” bright spots, filamentary structures,
and movement of the bright spots consistent with rotation of Birkeland current
filament pairs and their possible coalescence.

This is a pretty weak prediction.  Tabloid psychics can do this.  Features that could be 'bright spots' are already visible in the IBEX map.

Now consider Thornhill's quote of Alfvén:

In 1984 Alfvén predicted from his circuit model of the Sun there are two
double layers, one connected to each pole at some unknown distance from the
Sun or heliosphere. He wrote, “As neither double layer nor circuit can be
derived from magnetofluid models of a plasma, such models are useless for
treating energy transfer by means of double layers. They must be replaced by
particle models and circuit theory... Application to the heliospheric current
systems leads to the prediction of two double layers on the sun's axis which
may give radiations detectable from Earth. Double layers in space should be
classified as a new type of celestial object.” — H. Alfvén, Double Layers and
Circuits in Astrophysics, IEEE Transactions On Plasma Science, Vol. PS-14, No.
6, December 1986.

But Alfvén's 'circuit model of the Sun' is NOT the same as EU's Electric Sun model, for Alfvén was not suggesting that his circuit mechanism was the source of solar luminosity.  Alfvén described it as a possible mechanism for heliospheric plasma flows.  Alfvén fully understood that stars were powered by nuclear energy and that stellar astrophysics had a major role in the study of laboratory plasmas.  Consider this quote by Alfvén from his paper “Cosmical Electrodynamics”  H. Alfven. Cosmical Electrodynamics. American Journal of Physics, 28:613–618, October 1960. doi: 10.1119/1.1935919.

“Even if Birkeland's experiments were as good as could be made in his time, he could not produce a high-temperature dense plasma, and it is only by studying this state of matter that we really can draw certain conclusions about cosmical phenomena.  This technique has not been available until the last few years and is a result of the so-called thermonuclear research.  This research got its start from astrophysics - as is illustrated not only by the term “Stellarator”, but also by the name of Spitzer - and it still gets much inspiration from cosmical electrodynamics.'”

Clearly Alfvén was NOT a supporter of Electric Sun claims.  Why do the Electric Universe supporters insist on implying that he was?

But the real gem of the EU article is the graphic about halfway down the page titled “The Sun's Environment”.  Here's just a few of the issues and questions this model raises.

• Central z-pinch current column is single current.  This configuration has the same problems as the 'Solar Resistor Model' discussed before such as the instability of this configuration along with the fact that any current sufficient to explain solar luminosity creates a magnetic field far stronger than observed.  In the Thunderbolts thread, they seem to deny that they use this configuration, instead favoring the 'spherical capacitor configuration'. 
• This z-pinch current column is inconsistent with the description in “The Electric Sky”, page 112, Figure 21, which has two currents directed into the Sun from the north and south poles. 
• Thornhill's interstellar magnetic field is in the vertical direction in this graphic.  This is inconsistent with field produced by the z-pinch currents which are directed around the current.  Clearly, someone at EU forgot the rules for magnetic field formation by currents.
• So what creates the 'vertical' interstellar magnetic field?  This field must be much stronger than field created by z-pinch in order to keep the z-pinch stable.  All values predicted for this configuration are far larger than any measured values.  If the claim is this field is generated by the intergalactic current streams, the direction is still inconsistent.
  
• Consider the disk of charged particles from Sun.  Is this protons AND electrons from Sun?  If so, this is radically different from outward proton flow and in the inward electron flow of  'spherical capacitor model' described in some EU forums and "The Electric Sky".
• What confines the 'disk of charged particles from the Sun' to a disk structure?
• What holds the 'double layers' in place?  All known laboratory & astrophysical double layers are 'anchored' to some structure (in astrophysical cases, this is often by gravitational stratification, see "The Real Electric Universe" ) so the double layer does not collapse due to the attraction of its own opposite charges.  Without this 'anchor', the double layer collapses on a timescale on the order of the inverse of the plasma frequency.
• If all of these z-pinch currents powering stars are from filamentation of a galaxy-forming current stream, wouldn't this preferentially align the northern & southern magnetic poles of stars in the galaxy with the galactic spin axis?
• If the stellar magnetic field is driven by these external currents, how can this mechanism explain the 11-year cycle of the solar magnetic reversals?  Do the galactic currents periodically change direction (perhaps they are A/C?).  If that is the case, wouldn't all stars in a given galaxy exhibit the same magnetic cycles (in period if not necessarily in phase)?
  
• The current streams depicted in Thornhill's model should be strong emitters of synchrotron radiation.  No radio skymap sees these structures from nearby stars dominating the general structure created by the galactic magnetic field.
• In the model defined by Thornhill's graphic, in which direction is the Sun moving to explain the IBEX observation?  That is, in what direction is the solar apex?
  

Like many of the other EU models, this current configuration can be plugged into Maxwell's equations to determine:

1. Electric & magnetic field strengths to compare with measured field values
2. Forces the E & B field configurations will produce on charged particles at any point.  This will tell you if the configuration is stable, or if unstable, on what time scale it will disintegrate.
3. Effective charge densities created by differences in speeds of ions and free electrons.

Has any Electric Universe advocate done this?  I suspect not.

I suspect Mr. Thornhill doesn't understand the IBEX data projection (which is either Aitoff or Hammer), since the imprint of his 'disk' on the sky, or even of a current stream crossing a disk, is inconsistent with the shape of the IBEX ribbon structure (it is actually much more consistent with the shape examined by Schwadron, mentioned before).   It also creates problems for his interpretation of the 'hot spot' in the apparent direction of the heliotail being one of his 'double layers' that powers the solar z-pinch.

But the real demonstration that Thornhill does not understand what he is talking about is revealed in this quote:

Thornhill: Already there has been a report of an unexplained high-energy cosmic ray “hot spot” roughly in the direction of the inferred “heliotail.” The energies of the cosmic rays are in the range possible by acceleration in a galactic double layer (Carlqvist). Confirmation may soon come from observations of high-energy cosmic-ray electrons. The electrons undergo synchrotron and inverse Compton scattering losses and thus cannot travel very far from their sources, which makes them sensitive probes of nearby galactic sources and propagation.

First, the last sentence in the quote above is almost an exact quote from the report, though Thornhill did not note it as such, making it look like this statement is his thoughts.  Second, he notes that the electrons cannot travel far from their sources due to "synchrotron and inverse Compton scattering losses".  Thornhill doesn't understand that these very same processes will act on his star-powering z-pinch!!  What does it say about how far these currents can propagate???


I'll give Mr. Thornhill a few months to assemble and publish his detailed results answering these questions.  I may include the implications of this new EU model as part of my presentation at the American Astronomical Society this coming January.

I also welcome constructive comments to address these questions.

IBEX Results Cause Even More Problems for Electric Sun Model

The Mission and the Results
NASA recently released a 'first light' total skymap of data collected by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission (Wikipedia: IBEX).
NASA Release: Giant Ribbon Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System
IBEX News: IBEX Explores Galactic Frontier, Releases First-Ever All-Sky Map

IBEX measures the flux of high-energy, i.e. energies of kilo-electron volts,  NEUTRAL atoms that propagate to the inner solar system from regions at or near the heliopause (Wikipedia: Electron Volt, Wikipedia: Heliosphere).

Figure 1: One energy band of the IBEX all-sky map, corresponding to atoms with an energy of around 1,100 electron volts.  The different colors correspond to different counts of atoms from the different directions in the sky (note the color bar at bottom).  The 'nose' of the heliosphere, the direction of the Sun's motion relative to the local interstellar medium, corresponds to the center of the map.  This map, A, is the entire sky projected into 2-dimensions, using an Aitoff projection (Wikipedia: Aitoff Projection).  The inset, B, reveals bright knots in the ribbon.  Credit: SwRI.  More images from the NASA press release.

IBEX sees a clear enhancement in the direction of the Sun's motion through the interstellar medium (ISM).  In the skymap, this flux appears as blue, corresponding to a value of about 100 particles per square centimeter/second/steradian/keV.  This enhancement was expected by the standard model of the Sun's magnetic field interacting with the interstellar medium, much the same way as the Earth's magnetic field interacts with the solar wind to form the magnetosphere (Wikipedia: Magnetosphere). 

The unexpected result is the 'ribbon'-like structure seen to stretch across the maps.  This enhancement corresponds to a particle flux up to three times higher than the regular flux in the Sun's direction of motion.

This feature, which appears on a full sky survey, was undetected by the two Voyager spacecraft which just happened to pass to each side of the 'ribbon'.  This illustrates the limitations of in situ measurements when compared to large-scale, surveys.   This is why real science tries to incorporate both types of measurements. 

The press releases emphasizes the surprising aspects of the result:

"This is a shocking new result," says IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute. "We had no idea this ribbon existed--or what has created it. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised."

"We're missing some fundamental aspect of the interaction between the heliosphere and the rest of the galaxy. Theorists are working like crazy to figure this out."

Interpretations
But the problem for heliospheric physics not as big as the enthusiastic wording of a NASA press release might suggest.  Such phrasing is popular among public affairs offices as it promotes science as an exciting field, but such phrasing is also fodder for crank science groups, who always like to claim their model predicted the result all along.  More on this aspect below.

The region of the ribbon on the sky agrees well with predictions of existing 3-D heliospheric models, if there is an additional interaction of the current, induced in the plasma by the interstellar magnetic field, with the magnetic field itself.  This is called the JxB current (see “Comparison of Interstellar Boundary Explorer Observations with 3D Global Heliospheric Models”, Schwandron et al.).  That the inclusion of the JxB term (which has units of a pressure) exhibits such excellent agreement with the intensity profile of the ribbon suggests there is an additional particle interaction at play which has not been included in standard heliospheric models.  This is possibly another indicator that magnetospheric MHD models have reached the limits of their ability to generate robust predictions in the era of modern instruments and more effort should be directed in developing models which more accurately treat the particle kinetics (see "Hybrid Simulation Codes: Past, Present and Future - A Tutorial").

IBEX Implications for Electric Sun Models
There was some early reaction from the Electric Universe forum at Thunderbolts Forum (link).  (For those newcomers interested in other problems with Electric Sun models I've explored, see The Electric Sky: Short-Circuited, Electric Cosmos: The Solar Resistor Model, Electric Cosmos: The Solar Capacitor Model I, II, III, and entries under the tag "Electric Universe" on this blog.)

As usual, the comments from the EU fan club are scientifically useless, resembling a form of electrophilic pareidolia (Wikipedia: pareidolia).  Everything looks like some type of current to them.

So let's go into the reasons why the IBEX result creates more problems for the EU claims that the Sun is powered by external electrical energy.

1) IBEX reports a flux of Sunward-bound NEUTRAL atoms.  Not charged atoms, and not electrons (as required by many Electric Sun models).  In the forty years that humans have sent satellites ranging between the orbit of Mercury to the termination shock, no space plasma detector has detected Sunward-bound electrons at anywhere near the flux and energies needed to provide significant power the Sun by this method.

2) This result indicates the heliopause is not a uniform region on fairly large scales.  So how can a flux of electrons from the heliopause create a sun that radiates so uniformly?  Consider the three possibilities:

• Electrons on direct radial paths from the heliopause to the photosphere would imprint this 'ribbon' structure on the phosphere.  The flux difference is a factor of two or three, so we would see an 'imprint' of this feature on the photosphere.  Why don't we see this enhancement in solar brightness?
• Suppose the electrons have their directions slightly randomized during their infall, so they hit the photosphere in a uniform flow, washing out the imprint of the IBEX 'ribbon'.  In that case, sunward electron fluxes should be about the same from any direction centered on the Sun.  This means the measured electrons fluxes from spacecraft would be consistent with values mentioned in my analysis of the "Solar Capacitor Model" (see 1, 2, 3).
• The infalling electron flow, through randomization and electromagnetic focusing,  gets confined to streamers.  The popular plasma lamp configuration (Wikipedia: Plasma Lamp) illustrates how such energetic streamers will create localized heating regions on surface, again, contrary to our observations of the Sun.

The only way the Sun could receive its energy from external particle flows, electrons or otherwise, is if electrons have some physics-defying properties yet to be detected in laboratories in our 100+ years of experience with them in scientific and engineering applications.

An 'Official Word' from the Electric Universe Priesthood?
Shortly after I had prepared the response above, I received news of the 'official' spin being placed on the IBEX results by advocates of the 'Electric Universe': "Electric Sun Verified" by Wal Thornhill

Thornhill claims the 'ribbon' seen by IBEX fits the 'Electric Stars' model perfectly?  He includes several 'predictions' that are about as insightful and precise as a tabloid psychic.

As part of this article, Thornhill included an interesting graphic about halfway down the page titled “The Sun's Environment”.  Close examination of this graphic and the accompanying text reveals that it is yet another Electric Sun model, with a some features, or at least ambiguities, substantially different than those presented in the Electric Sun models of “The Electric Sky” and other EU resources. 

Of course, if EU was really doing science, they would apply Maxwell's equations to the current systems they propose and see what happens for themselves.  But that might be expecting too much of them.  Plus, it's much more entertaining to demonstrate how they don't understand the basics of the physics in which they claim expertise!

More to come...

Thanks to Nathan Schwadron (Boston U & Southwest Research Institute) for clarifying some of my questions in interpreting their paper.

Scott Rebuttal. IV. 'Open' magnetic field lines

Here is another entry in my response to Dr. Scott's 'rebuttal'.

“Open” magnetic field lines is another concept that Dr. Scott condemns (”The Electric Sky”, page 118; “D.E. Scott Rebuts T. Bridgman: Open Magnetic Field Lines'', pg 11), but like so many other of his claims, he is, at best, playing semantic games.  In principle, magnetic and electric field lines can extend to infinity, however, in most cases we wish to examine, we don't want or need to consider the behavior at infinity.  Is Dr. Scott saying that any time you want to visualize something with a magnetic field, you must represent the entire universe? 

In any real analysis, we have to draw the boundary somewhere.  This can leave field lines cut-off.  Particles can still flow along these lines.  In general, they will connect to field lines from another field of a more distant source.  In the case of magnetic dipole fields, these 'open' lines generally occur near the poles.  If Dr. Scott claims these lines don't exist, is he claiming that charged particles cannot travel out from these regions?  Where do the charged particles go?

The recognition that magnetic field lines can never end is acknowledged by many researchers by enclosing the term 'open' in quotes.  I will use that convention here.

Dr. Scott's obsession with 'open' field lines also reveals an hypocrisy on his part.  It's as if he wants to treat them as 'real', in need of being drawn 'complete'.  But Dr. Scott's claim gets even stranger when we begin to explore his justification that 'open' field lines violate Maxwell's equations [Scott 2007].   Specifically, Scott claims that field lines must be closed to satisfy the Maxwell Equation,

But magnetic field lines are not 'real', they are representations of a vector field designed as mere guides to directions of charged particle flow, representing the direction of the vector field at that point.  When we draw a field line as complete between two points, say A and B,  (See Figure 1 at below) we are saying that we expect the particles moving outward from point A will eventually arrive at point B.  If a field line is 'open', such as for point C, we don't expect the particle to ever return to the original system, such as point D, but connect to magnetic fields from other more distant sources.  Dr. Scott's insistence on closed magnetic field lines makes such systems of plasmas permanently CLOSED to any kind of charged particle transfer.

Figure 1: An exploration of closed and 'open' field lines.  The red field lines close back on the source object for the field.  The blue field lines are 'open', connecting to more distant field sources which we don't show in this graphic.

The Maxwell equation,

, is true everywhere in a magnetic field.  This is a consequence of what is called the Divergence Theorem and is related to the observational evidence that there are no (known) magnetic monopoles (source points of magnetic flux) and it means that the net magnetic flux passing through a closed surface is zero: the same amount of magnetic flux passes into the surface as passes out of it.  This condition demands no other constraint!

In fact, the simplest set of 'open' field lines, a constant magnetic field, where the field lines extend from points at 'negative infinite distance' to 'positive infinite distance', trivially satisfies  the divergence condition.  Dr. Scott's claim that 'open' field lines violate the divergence condition for magnetic fields is false by trivial counter example!  An undergraduate physics major taking a year course in electromagnetism should immediately recognize Dr. Scott's statement as a gross error.

The really embarassing part is that Dr. Scott managed to get this fundamentally erroneous claim into the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, a journal that is supposed to be peer-reviewed!  This wasn't an obscure paragraph in the paper.  A large section of the paper was devoted to arguing this statement.  The journal allowed a blooper like this through?  What does that say about the quality of the peer-review process for this journal?

But let's cut Dr. Scott some slack.  Maybe Dr. Scott relying on the divergence condition was actually a typo (a really big typo).  Perhaps Dr. Scott really meant to invoke the other Maxwell equation related to magnetic field structure, Ampere's Law:

The only problem with this is that the applicable vector identity is Stokes Theorem, so

This mathematical relationship is true for any arbitrary closed path in the magnetic field, such as path EFGH, or even IJKL, in Figure 1.  It is not just paths representing magnetic field 'lines'!  What we define as magnetic field lines are just lines defined along a path parallel to the local vector field, so that the line segment, dl, is parallel to the magnetic vector, B. 

There is no requirement that the path be closed when defining magnetic field lines, only that if the path is closed, by Stoke's Theorem, it will specify some characteristic of the current and electric field passing through the surface enclosed by the path.

While drawing field lines as closed loops will guarantee that

insistence on 'close' field lines appears to be a human convention not tied to any physical requirement so long as the magnetic field lines never begin or end (Wikipedia: Magnetic Fields). 

As an additional check, I've examined a number of papers written in the past 100 years on the development of electromagnetism and on magnetic fields and field lines, many written by leaders in the field, including works by Alfven, Vasyliunas, Stern, Swann, and Falthammar, and have found no support for Scott's statements that field lines cannot be 'open'.  Many of these researchers use the concept themselves.  If Dr. Scott wishes to continue making this particular claim, he needs to provide more documentation than "Don Scott Says So".  Professionals with a stronger background in electromagnetism than Dr. Scott (or me), disagree with him.

Contrary to Dr. Scott's claims in “The Electric Sky”, 'Open' field lines do not violate Maxwell's Equations!

References
[1] D. E. Scott. Real Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and Plasma in the Cosmos. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 35:822–827, August 2007. doi: 10.1109/TPS.2007.895424.

Public Presentation at National Capitol Area Skeptics

I'm scheduled to do a presentation for the National Capitol Area Skeptics based on my paper "The Cosmos in Your Pocket" .

The talk is scheduled for October 10, 2009 at 1:30PM at the Bethesda Library, Bethesda, Maryland and is open to the public.

Don't worry, it will be abbreviated to one hour duration, not the two hour marathon session at DragonCon.