Electric Sun Discussions

[Lloyd]

* Charles, Michael, Brant and I plan to be having our 6th discussion shortly (2nd for Brant), i.e. 8 PM Eastern Time at https://docs.google.com/document/d/10TZ7hHnmV6Ttjbm30jiDFJRK-vtrZ-Vqcd6HVY5BotU/edit.
* Anyone may view it and may submit questions or comments on the side, I think.

[Lloyd]

MM & BC To Explain Running Difference Images of the Sun -- (6/14) 8 PM ET
BC: Brant Callahan; CC: Charles Chandler; LK: Lloyd Kinder; MM: Michael Mozina
LK: I guess we should all first watch the movies and look for a lot of pixels, on the left part of each video, that are changing brightness independently, which MM said are electric discharges, or loops.
- Here are the movie links:
B/W Video: MM1
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/goldraw.avi
Color Video: MM2
http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/movies/T171_000828.avi
- When done, I suppose MM & BC should answer questions, starting below these 2 images.
- Here are 3 similar Youtube videos:
LK1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlPhIbF96-g
LK2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7RvEWm9h8I
LK3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOD14oYV964
LK: MM, you say these images are from 171A light, which is UV. Right? And this is one of the frequencies that penetrates the photosphere down to the rigid surface. Right? The features can’t be on the surface of the photosphere or above, because typical photosphere features are not seen, esp. granules. Is that correct?
- And the main thing you’re pointing out to begin with is that the individual pixels that change intensity are doing so because of E.D. in those areas. Do you know what the light intensities in those pixels are? And are those intensities producible only by E.D. (i.e. Electric Discharge)?
- Can you answer this, Brant?
BC: Yes 171 is UV. I think the main thing is the intensity of the light allows it to penetrate the photosphere...
LK: Last time, MM said a lot of pixels change intensity in those two movies in the left column, marked MM1 and MM2. And he said those are E.D. Do you agree?
BC: Yes. I agree. The activity that we see on the “surface” of the sun is best explained by ED.
LK: MM was trying to explain the evidence for the E.D. being all over the Sun’s rigid surface. Those pixel brightness changes was one of the items of evidence he mentioned.
BC: For something like that you have to put in a time frame perspective. Do the features we are looking at have the same lifetime as the rest of the features at the same altitude on the solar surface? To me it seems as though they have a lifetime significantly longer than “plasma” features at the level below the photosphere.
LK: Charles, did you see the movies okay?
CC: Yes. What I’m wondering is how we conclude that this is E.D. I think that it is, but I’m not sure that what I’m thinking is what others are thinking. First, I’m questioning how we determine the temperature. Am I right in thinking that this is entirely based on degree of ionization, where we expect hotter plasma to be more highly ionized? If so, we should consider that there is another factor that can cause ionization: electric fields. So the conclusion that these are iron lines at 1 MK might not be correct. In fact, I’m wondering if ALL of the temperatures might not be correct, as none of them take electric fields into account. So the temps might be far lower, and this might be evidence of electric fields. What do you guys think?
BC: I believe that iron XIV has a particular spectrum. If you look through a spectrometer you will see lines at 171. It takes a particular energy to get this spectrum ~100eV. This equates to a temperature of 11,[6]00K per eV. Iron line can be shifted by an electric field if the plasma is already ionized. If it is neutral the electric field will accelerate the polarized atoms producing a what I believe is called Critical Ionization Velocity.
“Critical ionization velocity (CIV, also called Critical velocity, CV) is the relative velocity between a neutral gas and plasma (an ionized gas), at which the neutral gas will start to ionize. If more energy is supplied, the velocity of the atoms or molecules will not exceed the critical ionization velocity until the gas becomes almost fully ionized.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_ionization_velocity
LK: Does that mean the temperature could be different, or is it likely definite?
BC: The temperature of the bulk is an average that depends on the number of ionized atoms in the plasma. But the lines that you see indicate that some portion of the plasma is at iron XIV temperatures.
LK: What temperature range is that then?
BC: If you believe the science of spectroscopy then the temperatures are 120 to 2000 K based on the TRACE instrument specs.
http://trace.lmsal.com/Project/Instrument/inspass.htm
I personally put the temperature of the coronal loops that emanate directly from the surface at about 1.5 MK. Its ionized iron XIV. Thats only about 100eV. About what comes out of your wall socket.. This electric field extends from the solar surface to the heliosphere.
CC: Why do you say 1.5 MK, when the spectroscopy says 120~2000 K?
BC: Good question. The bandpass filters on the camera say that they are centered on 173 which is a little cooler than 171. Everything I have looked at on the TRACE site gives me the impression they are using the higher temperature end of the filter.
CC: If these are arc discharges, what is the charging mechanism?

Aether Antenna as Sun’s Charging Mechanism
BC: And we come to the crux of the matter! I was going to provide a Fe XIV iron chart.....
But onward. Did you get the Cathode paper that I sent out? [http://plasma.mem.drexel.edu/publications/documents/ISPC-564-GA.pdf
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... r8EDNPVY1Q ]
CC: Yes, I got about halfway through it... I intend to finish it. It looks like a good study.
BC: So the charging mechanism that i am proposing is similar to how an antenna works... An antenna receives energy and converts it to “electrons” so that you can enjoy it.... I am proposing that the sun works that same way due to its scale. So then going a little further we can say that it is a “scalar” wave receiver... Similar to professor Meyl’s work. It seems as though a sphere works best for those purposes. I think I posted a link to his work last week. So the sun is a big antenna spitting out electrons. Has a spherical iron shell.... The problem with that is gravity. So using a different model of gravity to allow the sun to exist. I posted links to Aetherometric gravity last week as well... Basically in laymans terms- The sun receives Tesla waves and converts them into electrons.
LK: Have you read the Aetherometric experimental reports? I meant Brant.
BC: Lots. I have corresponded with DR Correa...
LK: Can you summarize the experiments?
BC: LOL! Which ones????
LK: The most relevant to aether powering a sun-like antenna.
BC: I like the photon page first...
http://www.encyclopedianomadica.org/English/photon.php
Then I would go on to the 4 monographs about the Tesla Coil.
http://www.aetherometry.com/Electronic_Publications/Science/tesla_appreciation.php
LK: Have you read CC’s solar theory?
BC: Just what was posted in our discussions and some on TPOD forum.
LK: That’s TB forum. He thinks EM forces help gravity accrete matter into stars etc and gives them several layers of double layers, which produces the electrical effects at the surface. Is that accurate, CC?

Negative Sun; Outward Flowing Electrons
CC: Yes. While we’re right here, I’m saying that the Sun is net negative, at least at the surface. (Elsewhere I have said that it got that way because of the loss of positive ions during CMEs.) Brant is saying that the Sun is an antenna that converts photons (or aether) to electrons. Do we agree that the Sun is net negative?
BC: YES!!!
CC: Do you think that these electrons then flow out of the photosphere, toward the interplanetary medium, which is positively charged?
BC: YES. They flow outward because there is “less” electrons beyond the solar surface. I think we figured that there only needed to be a difference of 3000 electrons per cubic meter in the solar wind to produce an electric current great enough to power the sun. Ian Tresman I think helped with that one.
CC: Cool. Is that on plasma-cosmology somewhere, or on a t-bolts thread?
BC: Maybe an old BAUT forum thread or a Jref thread..... I think it was in the context of the solar wind is neutral so how could it be considered an electric current...
CC: I know, I’ve heard that argument too. So I ask people to go slice open a current-carrying wire, to see if they find any charge separation... duh, it’s the potential between the ends of the wire that cause the current, while in the middle of the wire, we expect atoms pulled one way by the electric force (though restricted by the crystal lattice) and the electron cloud moving the other way, but we don’t see a charge separation in the wire. So the solar wind could be net neutral, but this doesn’t say that there isn’t an electric current in it.
LK: Nice point for those who care.
- I find “3000 electrons per cubic meter” at this thread:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=34605&sid=5a08bc815abbe6354ad4bcfe01cdf1f7
BC: Right here... ““Thus it would appear that, if but one in about every 3,000 electrons near the Earth turned out to be a current carrier moving at almost the speed of light toward [or away from] the Sun, the power delivered would be enough to keep the Sun "burning" at its present rate. This seems a rather subtle stream but it would suffice to power the Sun.””
- So thats a little different than what I remember... Getting old.... The indicated direction is different but the idea is the same.
CC: The direction of the current is an issue, I think. Did you see the image that I did, depicting the gross characteristics of discharges? I think that electrons flowing inward to the Sun would produce a very different type of discharge, and I think that this is one of the big problems with the ES model. I think that there are too many things wrong with that polarity. It puts people off, to see a model that has that many problems. And it means that the model cannot accept more data and more explanations of different kinds of stuff.
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/2ndParty/Images/Charles/Sun/Solar_Polarity_wbg.png
BC: Thats what I thought.
Yeah. I was just trying to match what was observed on the sun to what I could find in the lab. And I found the Arc Cathode paper plus spent a lot of time TRACE web site..
Images of the Sun taken by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer
http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/TRACEpodoverview.html
Your polarity diagram is interesting... It got me thinking about positive and negative lightning...
LK: I’d like to see you guys critique Don Scott’s speech from the EU conference in January, which is posted on the TB website at http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/mm/electric-universe-2012-conference-video-excerpts/
Toward the middle he shows a vacuum tube diagram with cathode and anode and describes his theory there.
CC: I saw that. But the specificity of the contentions is extremely low. He’s just basically saying that same thing as Alfven & others have said before, that you can get anode tufting.
LK: Doesn’t he say which part of the vacuum tube is equivalent to the tufted photosphere?
CC: I think they’re saying that the tufts at the anode (the positive electrode) are analogous to the granules in the photosphere. But he doesn’t say anything about the charging mechanism, or why the interplanetary medium would be negatively charged. It is mentioned frequently by Juergens & others that there is a stream of electrons, flowing into from the interstellar medium, that lights up the Sun. But we would actually expect that to be positive, and there is no evidence of such an electron stream, and if there was, it would connect with the Sun in discharges that would look like lightning strikes, not tufts.
CC: I think that the granules ARE tufts, but I think that this is actually a “negative glow” plasma.
BC: Yeah. What about the negative glow in his diagram?
CC: Oh, yes,..
LK: The negative glow is the electrons moving through the photosphere?
BC: I would think so....
LK: CC, Brant mentioned positive lightning, which I remember you saying is about the same as negative, but just coming from a greater height. Is that right? The cloudtops?
CC: Yes, positive and negative lightning are both electrons streams. In negative lightning, the cloud is negative and the Earth has an induced positive charge, while in positive lightning, it’s the other way around. But the way the stepped leaders advance from the main negative charge (in the cloud or in the ground) is more or less the same either way.
CC: As concerns the difference between typical negative glows and typical anode tufts, I’m thinking that if we take the stringy plasma in a negative glow, and subject it to an enormous gravitational and electric force, such that it clings tightly to the negative electrode, we’ll get the kind of “tufting” that would be somewhat more typical at the anode.
LK: Do you mean typical on the Sun? Or photosphere?
CC: In the lab, we’re seeing distinctive characteristics of discharges in gases, especially low density gases. I think that this is why Juergens picked the anode as the most analogous to the appearance of the granules in the photosphere. But I think that this is incorrect. I think that a cathode glow could produce that kind of tufting.
BC: I don’t think we have explored the range of possible conditions on the solar surface or a lab cathode.
Here is an interesting image...
http://trace.lmsal.com/POD//images/MDI_T171_000317_11.gif
CC: Itsy bitsy solar spidey...
BC: YES. And I found the same structure at the end of the Cone Nebula...
http://spacefellowship.com/news/art17707/picture-of-the-day-the-cone-nebula.html
- Just to show that electric currents show up in the weirdest places...
CC: I agree! Anyway, I don’t mean to bore everybody with the solar polarity thing, but I think that the ES model has it backwards, and that this is preventing progress in the model. Flipping the polarity makes it possible to build on it, and everything starts to fall into place.
LK: CC may have a list of problems with the ES model ere long, Eh?
CC: Yes, I’ll be working on it, but I want to hear what Brant and Michael have to say first. Never know what you’re going to learn!
BC: I agree.. The cathode model seems to fit the observations very well. The photosphere is .6 eV in temperature which is not very far from the surface in negative glow terms. The Corona is 100eV giving you pretty good bounds on where the electron emitting surface is...
LK: Those observations need to go on CC’s list, Brant.
CC: The helmet streamers in the corona baffled me for the longest time. And the fact that the particles accelerate away from the Sun, which wouldn’t make any sense at all if the electrons were flowing in from outer space, because they would accelerate toward the Sun, but it makes perfect sense if the electrons are breaking away from a current divider near the Sun’s surface, and then accelerating toward a positive charge in the interplanetary medium.
- Next time I like to ask BC more questions about eV’s and temps and ionization levels in spectroscopy. I’m intrigued by the antenna idea. But indeed, the point of convergence in both models is at the cathode, and then the properties of the photosphere make sense.
BC: Yes. That sounds good to me...... I have had some thoughts on the power source for the sun from the ES perspective as well as flux tubes that connect the earth and the sun... Some of it does not seem to fit observations so well...

CMEs Power the Sun
CC: Did you see my work-up on the solar power output, considering that CMEs are expelling positive ions from the positively charged photosphere, and that the electron flow is the equal but opposite [charge?] reaction to that? I can account for the power output to within an order of magnitude.
BC: I hadn’t thought about reaction forces. Check out solar Tsunami’s.. You would think that for every event you would see some kind of plasma disturbance...
CC: And yes, we need to develop a list of the observations, to check against the proposed models.
BC: Yep. [BC then left.]
CC: I’m really interested in the RD images. They’re telling us something. I’m still not sold on the concentrations of iron that he’s talking about. But something is causing those patterns. I’m wondering if it isn’t degrees of ionization that we’re seeing, indicating electric fields.
- What do you make of the RD images?
LK: They strongly suggest a rigid surface to me, but I’d like to see if your CME idea would work with Si and Ne the way MM says below and in the photosphere. Would there be enough depth? He was saying 40,000 Km from photosphere to rigid surface, wasn’t he? Or 5,000? 4,800? Oh I think it’s Brant who says 16,000 Km below the photosphere. Is that enough depth for CMEs?
CC: For the CME thing to work, it is only necessary for arc discharges to occur in plasma that is dense enough to develop the pressure, but fluid enough to be expelled. The electrostatic layering in my model would work pretty much regardless of the bulk abundances of the elements, as anything can get charged. The only reason why I’m still preferring hydrogen & helium for the photosphere (and most of the convective zone for that matter) is that I “think” I’m properly interpreting the spectral data. But such is not my specialty, which is why I want to pump Brant & Michael for more info.
LK: Have you changed anything on your website since last week or so?
CC: Not really, just a few editorial improvements.

Electric Accretion Paper for NPA
LK: It might be nice if we could show videos together on the net and watch at the same time. The NPA has the ability to do that. Do you know of any other way? Theirs’ works like a conference call, but with a video involved.
CC: Skype can do video conferencing, ifyou have a webcam. Do you have broadband?
LK: I have both. I don’t use the webca,much. I guess I used
CC: I’ll see if I have Skype set up on this machine.
LK: It impresses me, but I still need to see if it can fit in with BC and MM’s data and claims.
CC: I think that a video conference might be an excellent way to proceed. Typing is nice, because you get the permanent record of what people said, and you can go back and review it. But in a conversation, you have move a lot faster. You just have to get used to letting each person talk for a little bit, waiting until they finished what they are saying, or the ¾ second lag will drive you crazy!
LK: We probably should do both, maybe. I’ll try to ask them what they think soon. You get your list. Ok?
- What do you think of having MM join NPA and sharing his info with folks that way? Would you be interested in joining? Do you have time? I guess you’d only get on the schedule once in a blue moon or so. That’s once a year. There’s a blue moon about once a year.
CC: NPA is a really cool group. I looked at some of the papers listed in their repository. Most of it is more academic than what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll get there somebody. But you have to present things in just such a way, to make it look like a scientist did it. I struggle with that kind of thing, because I don’t have the formal education, and I’m not thinking the same way.
LK: I don’t think they’re very strict and someone could give you a little help and it would be fine, if not better.
CC: You’re exactly right. I need to team up with other folks. That’s what I’m looking to do now.
LK: That seems like the place to do it. I was doing a TB forum thread on NPA every week last year. Just relaying their weekly schedule and providing info on the speaker and their subjects. They have plenty of good presentations there.
CC: Perhaps I’ll think about selecting a topic to work up. I think that the gas cloud collapse thing is a good place to start, how the “like-likes-like” principle can supply the missing force to initiate the accretion of dust into a star. If I could get somebody to help me work up the math, it would be presentable.
CC: In general, I think that it’s worthwhile to develop an overall theory. The reason is that in a narrow context, there are any number of possibilities. But if you take everything into account, there are far fewer possibilities, and you might get onto the right track. Then you can focus in on individual details, and work those up, confident that the overarching theory is correct. Well, I’m starting to think that the theory is correct. As you’ve seen, it has come a long ways in the last year. It wouldn’t surprise me if there turns out to be hidden surprises in it, but I’m starting to think that nobody gets this lucky. If this is actually the correct framework, then all of the details will fall into place, and it’s time to start popping out the individual papers, on topics like stellar accretion.
LK: I saw a video about a gas cloud heading toward a black hole, I think in the Sagittarius A area. And on the same webpage as Don Scott’s speech is a speech by Ed Dowdye who shows stars circling the supposed black hole that he says is calculated to have 4 million solar masses. I suppose EU theorists would be skeptical of that calculation. But have you seen the stars moving around the Milky Way center?
CC: I don’t see a theoretical problem with a black hole with 4 million solar masses. I don’t see why there would be a theoretical limit. I just disagree that black holes warp space because of the infinite gravitational field. I think that they can be explained with conventional physics.
LK: I emailed some info about how solar cycles seem to occur, which undermines MM’s idea of neutronium in the Sun, but the Dowdye video seems to possibly support it. If black holes exist, wouldn’t that mean neutronium does too?
CC: Not necessarily. I saw Dowdye’s presentation, but I glazed over toward the end, and maybe I missed something. But I think that the neutronium core has a couple of problems. Neutronium is one of them. The other is that the axis of a spinning core shouldn’t move, due to the gyroscope effect.
LK: I doubt if gravitational forces can overwhelm electrical forces.
CC: I agree. I saw the stuff on the alignment of the planets being a candidate for the cause of the solar cycles. I think that it’s interesting. I don’t have a good explanation for the cycles myself. To be a complete explanation, it has to cover a lot of specific details though. For instance, there is an equatorial band that shrinks during the sunspot maximum. What is that about? ))
LK: Did you read the link, or just the email quote?
CC: I looked (quickly) at the link. I’ll look again.

Reference
LK: Here in blue is what MM said last time about these videos.
MM: [Statements from Discussion #5 last week:] If you start with the original raw 171A images, you’ll notice on the left that there are a large number of small light sources that change in an almost pixel by pixel basis.
- You’ll also see large loops of course, but most of the discharges from one point on the surface to another occur in a small area, typically much smaller than a single pixel in this image.
- each pixel in this image represents [maybe] 360KM [square]
- Most of the electrical discharges between surface points occur over a short distance, probably measured in only a few KM, much smaller than one pixel in this image, and smaller than an SDO image as well.
- The ones we … ‘see’ in this image are actually more than 200KM in [length or width?]
- these loops appear all over the surface but most of them aren’t bright enough … to be seen in a satellite image.
- Only the larger loops, say 300KM or greater, produce enough light to show up in such images.
- [For] evidence for the smaller ones then, Look along the left side of the original images as the movie plays out.
- Many of the smaller loops are visible on the left and the brightness [of many] of the pixels change ... over [the playing] time.
- They don’t function like one continuous loop, but rather they function like a lot of little light source loops that all do things [independently]
- The larger loops in the flare region form full, large continuous loops that tend to change all at once around the loops as the loops increase ... and decrease in intensity.
- The point sources on the left however tend to change intensity on much smaller scales.
- Keep in mind that to even show up as a bright point in that 171A wavelength, the plasma temperatures have to be a minimum of 160,000 [Kelvin] and are probably well over a million … Kelvin.
- That kind of temperature increase (from photosphere temperatures) can only occur inside of a discharge process, [i.e.] a coronal loop/Bennett Pinch.
- That is the way sun produces light at these wavelengths, specifically via HUGE current flows that heat up the loops.

[CharlesChandler]

Michael responded later to one of my comments, and I'd like to respond to his comments. Here is the section:

CC: Yes. What I’m wondering is how we conclude that this is E.D. I think that it is, but I’m not sure that what I’m thinking is what others are thinking. First, I’m questioning how we determine the temperature. Am I right in thinking that this is entirely based on degree of ionization, where we expect hotter plasma to be more highly ionized? If so, we should consider that there is another factor that can cause ionization: electric fields. So the conclusion that these are iron lines at 1 MK might not be correct. In fact, I’m wondering if ALL of the temperatures might be incorrect, as none of them take electric fields into account. So the temps might be far lower, and this might be evidence of electric fields. What do you guys think?

MM: You’re on to something as it relates to the temperature of the WHOLE corona and the WHOLE chromosphere. They don’t have to reach the same temperatures as the current carrying loops. Thompson scattering happens in plasma. While the loops are the actual light source, that light will in fact be scattered and absorbed by surrounding plasma. The loops themselves however are HOT HOT HOT IMO. They are like ordinary electrical discharges in the Earths atmosphere in terms of the way they heat plasma.

I think that something is wrong with the way we're estimating temperatures. Electric arcs can certainly get hot, as there is no theoretical limit to the temperature that can be generated by electron streams. But there are very definitely practical limits.

Most of what I know comes from the study of lightning here on Earth, so I'll begin there. Air is an insulator, so voltages can build up without there being a discharge. But above 3 MV/m (at STP), we see dielectric breakdown, and an arc discharge begins. The loss of the insulating capacity of the air is a consequence of heat that was generated by the flow of an electric current below the threshold for lightning (in glow or dark discharge mode). The current heats the air, which causes it to expand. The less dense air has less electrical resistance. This allows the current to flow more easily. More current means more ohmic heating, which causes the air to expand even more, which further reduces the resistance, which enables even more current. The next thing that happens is an arc discharge.

The temperature within the discharge channel is relatively consistent, the main body of which is about 2500 K (though there are much higher temps caused by other processes that we can neglect for our purposes). This is also roughly the average sustained temperature of EDM. The reason for the consistency of the temperature is that it is self-limiting. Once the discharge gets going, the more current that flows, the more heat is generated. But the heat causes the plasma to expand, which reduces its resistance. With less resistance, there is less ohmic heating. So excess temps simply create a wider discharge channel, with the same current density per unit of sectional area.

The thing that actually determines the average sustained temperature within the discharge channel is the surrounding atmospheric pressure. The degree to which the ambient pressure resists the expansion of the discharge channel determines the amount of ohmic heating inside the channel. If the ambient pressure is less, the discharge channel expands more easily. In a higher-pressure atmosphere, the discharge channel cannot expand as much, and with higher-density plasma inside the channel, there is more ohmic heating. So the atmospheric pressure determines the temperature of an arc discharge.

Since these are physical laws that should apply everywhere in the Universe, we can then wonder what this means for our study of arc discharges in the Sun. At the top of the photosphere, the density of the plasma drops below that of the Earth's atmosphere at STP. In the extremely thin chromosphere and corona, the density is way, way below the Earth's atmosphere. This means that arc discharges should be way cooler than 2500 K. We might see instantaneous surges in temperature, as the discharge begins, and the ohmic heating shoots up faster than the plasma can expand. But the average sustained temps should stabilize based on ambient pressure.

This is interesting because in the corona, we're measuring temps in excess of 1 MK, when it shouldn't have the density for discharges above 1 K. This has led some people to conclude that those aren't arc discharges, and they went looking for something else, such as "magnetic reconnection" that somehow generates unbelievable temperatures in some sort of poorly-understood process.

Actually, they ARE arc discharges, but the way we measure temperature needs a second look. In fact, we haven't sent thermometers in there to get the measurements. So how do we conclude that the corona is running at 1 MK? This we do on the basis of the degree of ionization. Hotter plasma atoms, bouncing around faster, can hold onto fewer electrons. Then we get distinctive photons when electrons pass by, depending on the available electron shells. (The relationship of temperature to ionization is so direct that temperatures are sometimes reported in electron-volts, where each eV = 11,605 K.)

Yet temperature isn't the only thing that can cause ionization. Electric fields can also do this. Hence the degree of ionization is only a direct index of temperature if there is no electric field. If there is an electric field, you have to take that into account as well, and nobody is doing that. So when Alfven tells us that there is 1.6 GV of potential, and when we see photons indicating 100 eV of ionization, we shouldn't conclude that the temps are in the 1 MK range. Rather, we should conclude that the electric field has ionized the plasma, and the electric current is actually flowing through relatively cool plasma. This means that the coronal heating problem isn't actually a problem at all -- it was just poorly interpreted data. If we take the electric field between the Sun and the heliosphere into account, everything makes more sense.

[Michael Mozina]

I think that something is wrong with the way we're estimating temperatures. Electric arcs can certainly get hot, as there is no theoretical limit to the temperature that can be generated by electron streams. But there are very definitely practical limits.

Indeed. Those 'limits' that you're describing are what differentiate an ordinary "current' carrying filament (coronal loop) from a solar flare where the plasma threads are pinched together with so much force that the whole circuit erupts at once. You're absolutely right about their being limits to the flow of current, but keep in mind that limits are VERY HIGH in Earth term. When those limits are reached, we get flares and CME's.

Most of what I know comes from the study of lightning here on Earth, so I'll begin there. Air is an insulator, so voltages can build up without there being a discharge. But above 3 MV/m (at STP), we see dielectric breakdown, and an arc discharge begins. The loss of the insulating capacity of the air is a consequence of heat that was generated by the flow of an electric current below the threshold for lightning (in glow or dark discharge mode). The current heats the air, which causes it to expand. The less dense air has less electrical resistance. This allows the current to flow more easily. More current means more ohmic heating, which causes the air to expand even more, which further reduces the resistance, which enables even more current. The next thing that happens is an arc discharge.

In plasma, the presence of current creates "filaments" that pack the material into flowing streams of energy. YOu can see them in an ordinary plasma ball. If you have a small plasma ball, your hand can act to transition the current flow from those ordinary threads to a cathode type of arc discharge. I couldn't do that with the larger sized plasma balls, but the smaller ones demonstrate the transition points you're describing.

In "ordinary" thread like scenarios, the abundance of ions in the tornado like filament act as a conductor for the electrons that flow through the thread. The current creates a magnetic field around the thread that acts to pinch material into the thread and evacuate the regions directly around the thread, creating a type of insulation for the dense current carrying thread.

There are also two 'temperatures' that we must consider, the ion temperatures, and the electron temperatures related to that current flow through the ions. According to Alfven the ion and electron temperatures can vary by whole orders of magnitude depending on amount of current that flows through the thread.

The temperature within the discharge channel is relatively consistent, the main body of which is about 2500 K (though there are much higher temps caused by other processes that we can neglect for our purposes). This is also roughly the average sustained temperature of EDM. The reason for the consistency of the temperature is that it is self-limiting. Once the discharge gets going, the more current that flows, the more heat is generated. But the heat causes the plasma to expand, which reduces its resistance. With less resistance, there is less ohmic heating. So excess temps simply create a wider discharge channel, with the same current density per unit of sectional area.

It works a bit differently in dusty plasma. It's more of a plasma PINCH process that pulls in surrounding plasma (and surface iron by the way) but unstable shifts do occur. At some point the thread can give way to a pure arc discharge and filament eruptions do generate flare events when the current overloads the circuit.

It's a bit busy at work so I'll stop here for a bit and pickup the rest in a later post.

[Michael Mozina]

FYI, Lloyd, while I missed the online meeting last night, I did add some considerable content to the discussion which you're welcome to add here if you like. I intend to start a completely different thread on SDO images soon anyway, but it's good material for this thread as well.

[Michael Mozina]

The thing that actually determines the average sustained temperature within the discharge channel is the surrounding atmospheric pressure. The degree to which the ambient pressure resists the expansion of the discharge channel determines the amount of ohmic heating inside the channel. If the ambient pressure is less, the discharge channel expands more easily. In a higher-pressure atmosphere, the discharge channel cannot expand as much, and with higher-density plasma inside the channel, there is more ohmic heating. So the atmospheric pressure determines the temperature of an arc discharge.

Here I think we run into some fundamental differences between a gas atmosphere and a plasma atmosphere and the way powerful currents manifest in each of them. The whole atmosphere of the sun is a conductor, and electrons simply follow the path of least resistance. The flow of 'discharge' sized currents results in large pinched filaments of dense plasma that are relatively insulated from other plasmas in the atmosphere due to the evacuation process that is caused by the pinch of the magnetic field around that current. The loops form as 'twister like filaments' in the solar atmosphere composed of very dense material including Iron and Nickel. We know something about the 'temperatures' , or more accurately we know something about the kinetic energy states that are required to ionize iron to say Fe IX or FeXX. That allows us to get some idea of the ion temperatures that are required to generate 171A and other iron ion wavelengths images that we observe in satellite imagery.

Since these are physical laws that should apply everywhere in the Universe, we can then wonder what this means for our study of arc discharges in the Sun. At the top of the photosphere, the density of the plasma drops below that of the Earth's atmosphere at STP. In the extremely thin chromosphere and corona, the density is way, way below the Earth's atmosphere.

Keep in mind that that does not mean that the density of the FILAMENT is the same as the rest of the plasma in the atmosphere. That density can vary greatly IMO. I agree however that the WHOLE corona isn't necessarily radiating at a million plus degrees.

This means that arc discharges should be way cooler than 2500 K. We might see instantaneous surges in temperature, as the discharge begins, and the ohmic heating shoots up faster than the plasma can expand. But the average sustained temps should stabilize based on ambient pressure.

How then are we seeing loops in 94A for instance? These types of ionization states of iron are typically associated with temperatures in excess of 5 million degrees. FYI one of the very FEW things that I actually agree with the mainstream about in terms of coronal loops are their temperatures. God helps us both if your convince me to switch gears now.

This is interesting because in the corona, we're measuring temps in excess of 1 MK, when it shouldn't have the density for discharges above 1 K. This has led some people to conclude that those aren't arc discharges, and they went looking for something else, such as "magnetic reconnection" that somehow generates unbelievable temperatures in some sort of poorly-understood process.

I think there are in fact experts that understand that it's a current carrying, electrical discharge process. Dungey for instance coined the term 'reconnection' but he clearly also understood that it was also an 'electrical discharge'. EU haters on the other hand REFUSE to even hear that bad news. Let's not confuse real scientists with EU haters however. I wouldn't automatically assume that the mainstream doesn't understand or apply circuit theory to coronal loop activities, but it is the rare exception rather than the 'magnetic reconnection rule'.

Actually, they ARE arc discharges, but the way we measure temperature needs a second look. In fact, we haven't sent thermometers in there to get the measurements. So how do we conclude that the corona is running at 1 MK?

IMO we should NOT assume that the WHOLE corona is radiating at a million plus degrees. In fact I think that's highly unlikely. The mainstream really doesn't account for or acknowledge Thompson and Compton scattering processes on light that comes from outside of the coronal loops. Some of the light in the corona is simply scattered light from the loops, and it's not indicative of the temperature of the ENTIRE corona. I do think it's indicative of the temperature INSIDE the thread however.

This we do on the basis of the degree of ionization. Hotter plasma atoms, bouncing around faster, can hold onto fewer electrons. Then we get distinctive photons when electrons pass by, depending on the available electron shells. (The relationship of temperature to ionization is so direct that temperatures are sometimes reported in electron-volts, where each eV = 11,605 K.)

Yet temperature isn't the only thing that can cause ionization. Electric fields can also do this. Hence the degree of ionization is only a direct index of temperature if there is no electric field. If there is an electric field, you have to take that into account as well, and nobody is doing that. So when Alfven tells us that there is 1.6 GV of potential, and when we see photons indicating 100 eV of ionization, we shouldn't conclude that the temps are in the 1 MK range. Rather, we should conclude that the electric field has ionized the plasma, and the electric current is actually flowing through relatively cool plasma. This means that the coronal heating problem isn't actually a problem at all -- it was just poorly interpreted data. If we take the electric field between the Sun and the heliosphere into account, everything makes more sense.

You're point is valid IMO, particularly because of the electric field and the flow electrons through the thread. You're right we can't oversimplify the issue too much, particularly since there are multiple temperatures to consider in terms of ion temperatures and electron temperatures. Ions and electrons can have VERY different kinetic energy states.

I do hear your argument about temperatures, but keep in mind that the sun is the SOURCE of electrical energy into our solar system, or at least the focal point of distribution of electric energy in our solar system, it's not simply a 'secondary recipient' like the Earth's atmosphere. It's generates or least becomes the concentrated focal point of far more powerful electrical discharges close to it's surface than anything that could or ever would occur here on Earth except in the most "extreme' z-machine type experiments.

In some of the largest events, we even see evidence of fusion processes in those plasma threads and evidence of neutron capture signatures. These kinds of energy releases are typically associated with million degree+ plasmas in the Z-machine experiments. The Z-machine experiments even produce MUCH HIGHER temperatures. Those of the kinds of temperatures we're likely to see in solar flares IMO.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Not-Even ... 9409.shtml

Keep in mind that not every part of the loop needs to even be radiating at the same temperatures since Alven even envisioned a scenario where twisters formed within twisters and separated and formed based upon the ionization potential of each element. I suspect the temperature calculations will turn out to be the messiest and most confusing part of solar physics. It's just not a "simple' or 'single' process IMO.

[Lloyd]

Michael said: FYI, Lloyd, while I missed the online meeting last night, I did add some considerable content to the discussion which you're welcome to add here if you like.

* Michael, I can't find the Document. I was having trouble with it, but I don't remember deleting it. Even if I had tried to do that, it would have asked if I wanted to delete it for everyone, which I would not have said yes to. So, if you can find the Document, please send me the parts that you added. Or post them here, if you like.
* I don't know what's going on. I don't see it. I changed the title to Electric Sun Discussion 6x this morning. I made a copy last night, but the copy doesn't include your added material.

[CharlesChandler]

Your conception of an electrostatic discharge appears to be that it is an electric current flowing along a wire that was magnetically pinched from the surrounding plasma, leaving an insulating void that perhaps further encourages the current to follow the wire. In actuality, there is no wire. The inside of a discharge channel is a relative void. I think that a lot of the confusion with these issues is coming from the difference between electrical engineering and plasma physics, so perhaps it would be worth the digression to identify the EE model of electric currents, for everybody's benefit.

99% of the literature on electricity is focused on the flow of electricity through wires, because... ummm... electricity flows quite nicely through wires, and there are a lot of practical applications for this. For an EE to study electric currents in plasma would be more or less like a farmer studying how lichens can grow in Antarctica — technically speaking, yes it's possible for plants to grow in sub-zero temperatures, but that isn't necessarily useful information to somebody who is trying to get alfalfa sprouts to pop up in a temperate climate. So all of the concepts and terminology in EE are geared toward current-carrying wires.

A wire is a solid, so the atoms are in a crystal lattice, with electrons forming covalent bonds between the atoms. In a conductor, the outermost electrons are loosely bound to the atomic nuclei, meaning that they can easily be knocked out of place. In a gas, this would create a free electron floating around in space, but in a solid, that electron lands on a neighboring atom, perhaps displacing one of its electrons. To make this easier to conceptualize, EEs don't really think of electrons bouncing from one atom to the next. Rather, they think of all of the electrons comprising an electron cloud that can more or less flow through the wire. At the atomic level, this "flow" is a Domino Effect, where one electron at a time makes the leap to the next atom, displacing one of its atoms. But with each atom having many electrons (e.g., copper has 29), and with the complexity of the covalent bonding in the crystal lattice, it's just easier to think of electricity as "juice" that flows through a wire. In that conceptual framework, when you get to the end of the wire, you hit the boundary of the electron cloud, and the current doesn't exceed that boundary. For this reason, some EEs think that a vacuum is a perfect insulator. Air is certainly a much better insulator than a copper wire, and there is a lot of empty space in air, therefore it's the empty space that is the insulator, because you don't get any kind of electron cloud in a maze of covalent bonds when it's all just gas. Therefore, electricity cannot flow, and therefore, air is an insulator, because it's a gas with too much empty space.

But this just isn't correct, and you have to talk to plasma physicists to get a more accurate picture of what's going on at the atomic level in order to understand. Even in a crystal lattice, most of that is empty space, and if a vacuum was a perfect insulator, how would electrons ever get exchanged between atoms? Electric currents, even along copper wires, would not be possible, and arcs through the air would be ridiculous.

In fact, a perfect vacuum is a perfect conductor. In an electric field, electrons are accelerated by the electric force, minus their inertial forces, and minus any time they spend bouncing off of neutral atoms or getting pulled in by their electron deficiencies. What makes air an insulator is not the empty space, but rather, the nitrogen and oxygen molecules, which are two of the seven non-metallic elements, and which have tightly-bound outer shells. If the atom is missing an electron and a free one comes along, the atom will grab onto it and not let go. If it already has a full compliment of electrons, a new electron will just bounce off, and will have to find another way around if it is trying to respond to an electric field. But there is no Domino Effect moving rapidly through the gas. This makes air an insulator.

Note that higher up in the atmosphere, the air is less dense, resulting in a lower breakdown voltage. (The electrical resistance at the top of a thunderstorm is 1/3 that at the ground level.) Up in the stratosphere, the resistance is even lower, and this is why electrostatic discharges there (i.e., blue jets, red sprites, etc.) are so rare -- it's hard to build up the potential for a discharge when the resistance is so low. So the purer the vacuum, the easier the current flows, and a perfect vacuum is a perfect conductor. And the dielectric breakdown of a gas is, in fact, because of the evacuation of the insulating atoms from within the discharge channel.

You're right that the relativistic speeds within the discharge channel will generate a magnetic pinch effect. But you're wrong in thinking that positive ions will get pinched. In an electric field, electrons do almost all of the moving, while positive ions just sit there and wait for the electrons to show up. This is because electrons are so much lighter than atomic nuclei. The proton-to-electron mass ratio is 1836:1, so that would be the ratio of a hydrogen atom to a free electron. For a helium atom, it's 4 times greater (7344:1). To motivate positive ions with an electric field, you have to use special tricks, which generally are not available in nature. So those are free electrons shooting through those discharge channels, not positive ions. And the pinching that is occurring is consolidating the electron stream. It isn't fusing ions into heavier elements. We know that solar flares release neutrinos (thanks to you, Manuel, and friends), so fusion is occurring. If it isn't because of z-pinched positive ions, it would more likely be instantaneous increases in pressure at the ends of the discharge channels, where relativistic electrons slam into stationary ions. In terrestrial lightning, electrons move at over 1/10 the speed of light, and we're seeing soft x-rays and extreme temperatures in the stepped leaders where the discharge channels end. In the Sun, the discharge channels are many thousands of kilometers long, and I'm guessing that the electrons move at greater than 9/10 the speed of light. When those electrons get to their destination, something dramatic is going to happen. But I really don't see the rationale for fusion along the axis of the discharge channel. That's actually going to be the purest vacuum in the neighborhood, with z-pinched relativistic electrons headed in the other direction making a hole for themselves through the plasma.

You're right that the whole Sun is hot enough to be an excellent conductor. That fact has many significances. First, it's tough to maintain charge separations in a conductor, so the successful theoretical candidate has to provide a charging mechanism that will work inside a conductor. (That's a complex issue that I have addressed elsewhere.) Second, even hot plasma has a little bit of resistance, and dielectric breakdown occurs for the same reason, whether the electrons are working really hard to burrow through a thick gas, or easily zipping through hot plasma. For there to be an arc discharge, there had to be some resistance, and then the insulating capacity of the (weak) dielectric has to break down, because of the evacuation of particles in the discharge channel.

As an aside, one of the weird things about the arcades and CMEs is that fairly frequently there is a proton jet that shoots out nearly parallel to the surface of the Sun. To my knowledge, no model has established the conditions necessary for such a well-defined jet. My take on this is that these are hydrogen atoms that were lounging around in what turned out to be the best place to have an arc discharge. Electrons started zipping through there at near light-speed. So some of those protons got accelerated, against the electric field and toward the anode, just because of the drag force from the electrons. Where the arc dives back into the photosphere, the protons keep going straight due to their inertial forces, and exit the Sun nearly parallel to it. These proton jets have been clocked at 1/3 the speed of light. A thermonuclear explosion could get protons going that fast, but the ejecta would come out in a radial pattern, not a highly collimated jet. So I'm going with the evacuated discharge channel thing.

[CharlesChandler]

Lloyd, here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10TZ ... 5BotU/edit

If you can't get to it, I'll copy it to a new document, or I'll copy Michael's comment to this thread.

[CharlesChandler]

Here's another comment of Michael's that deserves a response:

CC: As concerns the difference between typical negative glows and typical anode tufts, I’m thinking that if we take the stringy plasma in a negative glow, and subject it to an enormous gravitational and electric force, such that it clings tightly to the negative electrode, we’ll get the kind of “tufting” that would be somewhat more typical at the anode.

MM: I think you will also need to consider the effects of plasma separation on plasma layer emissions.

Good point. Hydrogen only has one degree of ionization, so the proposed electric field only operates on one proton. But heavier elements can be far more ionized, because they have more protons. I have to think about the implications of that. In my model, the topmost 20,000 km is positively charged. At a depth of 20,000~125,000 km, it's all negatively charged. Heavier elements in the negative layer might actually bubble up into the positive layer, as they have more electrons to surrender to the negative layer, and develop a greater positive charge, pushing them up into the positive layer. I'll let you know what I come up with, but this would alter my bulk abundance estimates for the photosphere, which might lead to a better understanding of the RD imagery.

[Lloyd]

Electric Sun Discussion #7 - Part 1
* My computer conked out last night before the Discussion, so I wasn't able to participate or to notify TB forum members in advance of the Discussion, which took place at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f6ix_Dboief7hx9O4wsiRZK4mh6m6XDPZO6LnYJrwRw/edit. I had posted my questions there in advance.

LK1: Sun’s Net Charge and Bulk Electron Motion
- What is the main evidence that the Sun has a net negative charge and that bulk electrons are leaving the Sun, rather than moving toward it?

CC: The photosphere is definitely charged, as the “convection” in the granules is moving at supersonic speeds (as much as 7 km/s), which cannot possibly be thermodynamic convection -- it can only [be] evidence of the electric force. But if the charge was negative, considering the conductivity of the plasma, it wouldn’t exert a body force on the plasma itself -- it would just strip off the electrons. So the body force acting on the plasma in the photosphere, that keeps it tightly bound to the Sun, supporting supersonic “convection”, can only be the electric force acting on a positive charge. Therefore, the underlying charge has to be negative.

MM: I tend to agree. Pretty much every other configuration of charges produces slightly different sets of plasma flows. Birkeland’s cathode is capable of producing BOTH charges in on outbound flow. That’s why I find it so appealing.

CC: We can then work the rest of the way through it. For positively charged plasma to be held tightly down to the Sun, why doesn’t it just strip off the electrons from the underlying layer? This can only mean that the negative charge has a more powerful force holding it down too. So there has to be an even lower layer that is positively charged, which holds down the negative layer, which in turn holds down the topmost positive layer. In this way, I deduced that the Sun is made up of oppositely charged electrostatic layers. I couldn’t figure out what was preserving the charge separation until somebody turned me onto Harold Aspden’s work with compressive ionization. The force of gravity compresses the plasma beyond its liquid density, which begins to ionize the plasma. The electrons that are forced out of the over-compressed plasma then cling to that layer, without being able to flow back in, because there isn’t enough room between the atoms. The net result is huge charge separations, despite the near-perfect conductivity of the plasma.
- The evidence that bulk electrons are leaving the Sun is the heat and light generated in the photosphere. This is a sustained arc discharge.

BC: So really, that’s not much different than the standard model, except that you’re saying electrons instead of fusion at the center of the sun?

CC: You could put it that way. The standard model actually is just an energy budget. There really isn’t much physics in it. If it was a fusion furnace, we’d see a diffuse glow of gamma rays from an indistinct blob of plasma, whose density dropped off gradually. What we’re actually see[ing] is light from lower temperatures coming from a specific layer.
- The evidence that the electrons are exiting the Sun, rather than arriving at it, is the nature of the discharge. With the Sun as a cathode, the electrons distribute themselves around the edge, and leave the cathode, headed for the heliosphere, from all over the surface. They accelerate away, which is what we would expect for electrons that were close to a current divider. The further they get from the current divider, the less ambiguous the field, and they accelerate. We can also see the outward flow in coronagraphs. So the Sun-as-cathode makes sense. If the Sun was an anode, we’d expect the electron streams to get pinched into discrete channels as they approached the positively charged Sun. In other words, the flow of electrons would take the form of lightning, burrowing through the solar atmosphere. This, of course, is not at all what happens. The “spicules” that we see sometimes near active regions are the form that I’m talking about. But the flow in spicules is outward, and these are the exception rather than the rule. So I find the Sun-as-anode model to be untenable.

BC: I agree that the sun is negative. How would you explain the solar spectrum, especially since it resembles a solid arc spectrum? I think that the photosphere could be classified as a double layer.
- [See:] Solar Wind Origin Regions
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=37003

CC: What’s a “solid arc spectrum”?

BC: The spectrum from an arc lamp has a specific set of features related to the materials that make up the arc and emitting surface. Specifically, there is a black body spectrum overlaid by lines as well as a hump at about 180 nm from extreme UV emission. A Black body spectrum only come[s] from solid material. A continuum can come from a compressed plasma. With the smoothness of the curve being related to the density of the plasma. Spectral lines come from a plasma emitting light. The extra UV in the arc spectrum comes from the fact that an arc is coming from a solid surface.

MM: Keep in mind that solid particles are ripped from the surface in the current flows and they are ionized by the current flowing through the loop.

BC: This would produce a white light arc. Because it’s a solid material being ionized. Plasma produces lines. Solid material produces Black Body spectrum.
- [See:] Trace white light arc image: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/15%20April%202001%20WL.gif

MM: The dense material in and around the crust provides that black body spectrum IMO. There are white light arcs to be seen in the solar atmosphere however. They show up rather nicely in fact in 1600A images of the photosphere. The link above is to a TRACE white light image of a flare. The loops are a lot like an electrical discharge in the Earth’s atmosphere in terms of ionizing Iron and Nickel and other elements in the atmosphere, including Neon and Silicon to very high energy states. The SERTS data shows an abundance of NEON, Silicon, Iron, Nickel etc. When the sun goes into a more active phase we also show increase in sulfur ions, that are consistent with volcanic activity.

CC: I’m beyond my technical capabilities here, but that never stopped me from asking questions. First, I’ll just air some thoughts. I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’ve been asking questions about how we determine the temperature of the photosphere and corona. It’s my understanding that it’s based on the degree of ionization. But what if the plasma is in a strong electric field, and is already ionized? Then we’re over-estimating the temperature. We might also see a lot more bremsstrahlung radiation, as the electrons zip past the nuclei, due to the electric field.

MM: In terms of the temperature of each layer, I agree that we could easily overestimate the temperature of the WHOLE corona (or any other layer). The bulk of the light in iron ion images comes from the loops themselves. That light is scattered by the plasma in the atmosphere. LMSAL simply ASSUMES that all light from that wavelength must be associated with a minimum temperature and they assume even scattered light from the atmosphere is indicative of plasma radiating at very high temperatures (million plus degrees). In reality the LOOPS are that hot, but not necessarily the entire corona.

BC: Because of the thinness of a plasma, would you actually feel heat? Which would be different than the spectral temperature of the plasma.
- [See:] White light flares at the opacity minimum. Opacity minimum in my model is where the solid surface begins.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/607/2/L131/pdf/1538-4357_607_2_L131.pdf

CC: Brant, how dense does plasma have to be, in order to emit black body radiation? Or does it actually have to be a solid, where the crystal lattice affords the other wavelengths (such as infrared)?

BC: As far as I can tell in my discussions, it goes from spectral lines to a continuum to black body as you compress a plasma. So a solid is required to have a “true” black body spectrum. Nothing is a 100% perfect absorber so you will never see a theoretically perfect BB spectrum from a real object in the Universe as we know it. I have talked to Dr. Ott at NIST, whose expertise is high pressure plasma discharges. They take a container full of gas at some pressure and discharge a bank of capacitors through it. Then they measure the spectrum. It shows that a thin plasma emits lines, no matter the depth of the plasma. In other words, you will not see a BB spectrum from a thin plasma that is 1 gad zillion miles thick.

CC: OK, this is great info! I want to learn more about this, because this is definitely the kind of analysis that is going to nail this thing down. (Why aren’t mainstream scientists doing this -- do they not like the results? Anyway...) How deep does the BB have to be below the edge of the photosphere? I’m assuming that the thinner plasma wouldn’t absorb this radiation, is that correct?

BC: Think about an electrode with a thin layer of plasma surrounding it. You would see a spectrum, that was a black body spectrum, with a line or lines, depending on the composition of the gas making up the plasma. The BB temperature curve would be more “intense”, if the object was hotter. If you had series of elemental lines overlaying the surface, it would look like the sun. The sun has arcs, with much of the surface in transition from solid to plasma, like at the bottom of an arc being emitted from a surface. Plus, there are almost all the elements in the solar spectrum. This would produce a broadband mess, similar to what we see in the solar spectrum. Somewhere in my ramblings I found a beautiful image of the solar spectrum, showing all the lines, as well as the correct shape, from the UV section of the spectrum. I
will find it. http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/topbase/home.html

CC: I’ve seen one of those spectrums. Whoever could make sense of that would scare me. Anyway, BB is the same, regardless of the elements in the solid, but varies with the temperature of the solid? Or do we see spectral lines indicative of the elements in the solid?

BC: The spectrum is indicative of the temperature. However if you ionize the solid, say with an arc, you can tell the elemental make up of the solid. This is called mass spectrometry.

CC: What does this tell us about the elements?

BC: [It tells] What elements are in the sample, because of their spectral lines from ionizations. There is a catalog of elements by their spectral lines.
- Because of the problems with trying to tell what the sun is made of using spectral analysis, I went about it a different way. I tried to determine where the layers were on the sun. When I found white light flare (I pretty much know that they only come from a solid arc), I knew there had to be something to this. So when a bunch of different features lined up with opacity minimum, I was convinced that this was the solid layer of the sun below the photosphere. TRACE also shows some interesting signs of this, before they started processing the pics. That article was Handy et al 1998.

CC: I think you’ve got something valuable here, and that you should pursue it. We should work on putting together a paper that lays all of this out. It certainly will take a long time, but little bit at a time, it will come together. So I suggest that we start something and put it on the web somewhere, and then chink away at it.

BC: I am waiting for that probe, they are going to send to the sun. Yeah!! A paper would be good. I have already done a good portion of the work, so it shouldn’t be that difficult. You guys just need to show me where I went wrong.

CC: OK, thanks for the info! I’ll make some space for you on my website, and we can discuss how to proceed.
- [See:] Analysis of the Solar Spectrum: http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=8131

[Lloyd]

Electric Sun Discussion #7 - Part 2

LK2: Visible Features Below Photosphere
[color=#FF0000]LK2.1- What is the density and depth of the plasma layer immediately below the photosphere?

MM: Typically, I have used the standard helioseismology numbers as a guide in determining density. I’m not actually convinced that’s applicable, however, since IMO the sun is “layered”, in fact “double layered”, by the element. I don’t believe that the photosphere density at the surface is actually as thin as commonly believed. Based on the images, the shiny part of the photosphere (the Neon layer IMO) is approximately 500KM. That is the approximate depth of all “sunspots” when looking at them from any sort of side angle. The Silicon plasma layer under the photosphere is MUCH thicker and much cooler than the photosphere, particularly near the bottom of that layer. It’s approximately 3500-4000 kilometers and it gets much cooler as we go deeper into the atmosphere from about 5500 Kelvin at the top of that layer, to about 2000K at the base of that Silicon plasma layer. That temperature gradient is partly due to the constant flow of current from the surface that drives the heat upward, and away from the sun. That heat ultimately is carried by the current and carried up and away from the rigid surface and ends up convecting as heat at the surface of the photosphere.

LK2.2- The images of the rigid features under the photosphere seem to be rather clear. Is it possible for photons to penetrate thousands of kilometers of Si or Ne plasma at that density without totally blurring the images?

MM: At least part of that perceived clarity is related to the large distances involved, and the averaging effect of the RD/RA technique. The technique tends to create angular outlines of any surface features, particularly the RA (running averaged) technique. In order for us to see ANY light at 171A, or any of the iron ion wavelengths from UNDER the surface of the photosphere, it is absolutely necessary that the system has current flowing through all the layers. That constant flow of current acts to keep the ionization state of the elements in the plasma in the photosphere quite high. Were that current not flowing, we would NOT see a single thing under the surface of the photosphere; instead it would be instantly absorbed. That is one of the key falsification mechanisms/predictions of a plasma “layered” model. The neon ions in the photosphere must already be ionized to a +3 or +4 state by the constant flow of current toward the heliosphere; otherwise, the photosphere would absorb the iron ion wavelengths.

LK2.3- Do you agree that the density at the top of the photosphere is 2.0E-4 kg/m3, the bottom is 4.0E-4 kg/m3, and below it is 1.0E-3 kg/m3?

MM: I don’t have any data that would suggest that any other number is “more accurate”

LK2.4- Can you calculate what the density should be immediately above the rigid surface?

MM: I’m not sure. There are many complicated double layer factors to consider in an electrical model. Many of these concepts wouldn’t even apply to a standard theory (such as voltages, amperes, ionization potential, etc.)

LK2.5- What is the smallest area per pixel of any solar moss image?

MM: Most TRACE closeup images are limited to about 256KM per pixel in terms of resolution. I’ll have to check again, but I’m pretty sure that SDO image[s] are about the same, although SDO images show the whole disk at the same time, rather than just one small part of that disk.

LK2.6- MM, have you determined what percent of pixels in RD images change brightness per minute?

MM: I can’t recall even trying to determine that with any precision.

LK: And are the pixels that change brightness scattered everywhere, or confined to limited areas?

MM: The changes recorded in iron ion images are directly related to the flow of current through each loop. The brightness (or lack thereof) of each loop is directly related to changes in current flow over time. Typically, change happens along many of the loops at once, and the loops tend to congregate in “active” regions, that are caused by a volcanic release of solids into the plasma atmosphere.

LK2.7- CC, do you still favor a convection model for granules? And, if E.D. are widespread over a rigid surface, could they be involved in granule formation, such as by being the heat source?

MM: I’d have to say that the surface of the photosphere does show clear signs of convection. Heat is definitely rising up and through that surface.

CC: But it’s not just heat. The supersonic speeds in the updrafts and downdrafts are in no way explicable in simple thermodynamic terms. I think that extreme heat for electrostatic discharges is a factor. In the updrafts, there is also a drag force from the electron stream. In the downdrafts (up to 7 km/s) that’s pure electric force, pulling positively charged plasma (that has released electrons into the chromosphere) back toward the underlying negative charge.

MM: You’re right of course about the supersonic elements. They are associated with flows of plasma that are located inside the loops, not with the convection process itself.

CC: No, I’m talking about the granular updrafts and downdrafts (2 km/s and 7 km/s respectively).

MM: Ooops, sorry. Keep in mind that the current carrying loops flow up and down through that layer. In fact, I need to find a link to a movie that I created with Helioviewer, that shows the alignments of the magnetic fields on the surface combined with a 1600A image, and both images of that photosphere surface are combined with an iron ion wavelength. What [this] shows is that the north/south magnetic field [lines?] are perfectly aligned with the bright points, seen on the surface of the photosphere in 1600 and 1700A images. Those bright areas in 1600 [are?] related directly back to the magnetic field alignments in the magnetogram images, because the loops create those N/S alignments on the surface and “heat up” the surface as they flow through it. The combo image shows the relationships quite clearly. I’ll try to round up an appropriate link before I leave tonight.
- [See:] 211A combined with magnetogram image: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/sdo/mfield.mp4
- That image shows the 211A (pink) wavelength overlayed on top of a magnetogram (b/w) image. The magnetic field alignments on the surface of the photosphere are “caused by” the direction of flow through the loop at that point on the surface.
- [See:] 1600A with 131A overlay: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/image ... 00_131.mp4
- This overlay image shows the interaction of coronal loops on the surface of the photosphere too. The bright areas in 1600A are areas where the loops traverse that surface and heat the plasma at that point.

CC: What is the relationship between magnetic polarity and electric currents?

MM: The N/S alignments on that surface are directly related to the flow of material through the loop at that location. An upward flow of electrons will occur at one end of the loops and downward flow occurs at the far end of the loop. One loop traversing the surface produces one white and one black point on that surface depending on the flow of current at that location.

CC: But the magnetic field lines are pointing straight up through the loop footpoints. The structure of a sunspot is clearly that of a solenoid. This indicates that the current is rotating around the sunspot. For opposite polarity sunspots, the current rotates in opposite directions. Then the question is: what motivates the flow of electrons? It isn’t the magnetic force, of course. I’m convinced that it’s the electric force, between the underlying negative charge, and the top of the positive double layer. In a static environment, the outer reaches of a double layer are shielded from the underlying opposite charge by the like-charged plasma below it. But this leaves an enormous potential between that underlying layer and the top of the double layer. If you stuck a wire in there to get through the shielding, you’d get a heckuva current. So I’m thinking that sunspots are disturbances that enable that kind of current. But it isn’t current from one sunspot to the other. Rather, it’s current up through both sunspots, going out into the surrounding photosphere. The “current” in the coronal loops is weak by comparison. I’m thinking that this represents weak exchanges between the sunspots, if there are slight differences, and the currents follow the magnetic field lines.

MM: [See:] HMI continuum and 171A: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/image ... mi-171.mp4
- According to Alfven’s model, the rotation direction and speed determine the polarity and amperes, that one might expect to get from the magneto effects of plasma movement. Birkeland’s model was more dependent upon a constant release of energy, which was ultimately “guided” to the surface, based on the internal magnetic field alignments. The plasma tended to flow along the magnetic lines. The positive and negative points on the surface were driven by current.
- The link above is to another Helioviewer movie, that combines an HMI continuum image with a 171A image. Be sure to checkout the loops around the sunspot. The loops tend to come up and through the penumbra of the sunspots. Your concepts about the connections between the loops and sunspots is highly accurate IMO. It looks to me, however, that many of the loops return back into the photosphere, either near another sunspot or with one side of the arc away from the sunspot. The sunspot, however, almost always include[s] large discharge processes, that are typically seen near the penumbral filaments.

CC: Yes. It looks to me like there is a current, rotating as it rises. This creates a solenoidal magnetic field. BTW, the reason for the rotation is that the electrons flowing toward the top are doing so in the presence of the Sun’s (weak) overall field, and they experience a Lorentz force that induces a rotation. Once the rotation gets organized, then the magnetic field density shoots through the roof (> 4000 Gauss). The solenoidal field from that sunspot then has lines of force that necessarily close on themselves by diving back through the photosphere. If another sunspot forms within the scope of that field, its electrons rotate in the opposite direction, as the dominant external magnetic field is reversed (and powerfully so) due to the first sunspot.

MM: Electrical discharges traverse the surface in 1600A images: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/image ... ocking.mp4
- You’re definitely on to the something as it relates to two-sunspot interaction. One of them is often polarized one direction, while the other is polarized in the other direction. It’s not at all uncommon to see such arrangements, particularly in the active season, when active regions are congregated near the equator. The sunspots on opposite sides of the equator tend to be polarized differently, and they tend to “share” loops. Sooner or later, that current between points becomes unstable and flares/discharges occur. You can see their effect on that image above as the discharges traverses that surface.

CC: What I want to know is why the “first” sunspot is always ahead of the second, in terms of the rotation of the Sun (i.e., first the eastward sunspot, with a polarity matching that hemisphere’s polarity, and then the westward sunspot, which is opposite). I can understand why they would be opposite from each other. Does the eastward sunspot show up first? And, if so, why?

MM: According to Manuel’s model, the core spins on its axis about once every 5 minutes. It’s creating an enormous twister type of filaments out of both poles. As the core spins close to a 90 degree angle with respect to the outside surface, one of the threads is primarily located in the northern hemisphere spinning one way, while the other thread from the other pole is rotating in the southern hemisphere. Those rotation patterns dictate the field and current flow alignments and tend to create “hot spots” near the surface that result in volcanic activity around that thread.

CC: What is the radius of the core in Manuel’s model? I’d like to calculate the angular velocity of a core spinning that fast.

MM: Hang on. I calculated that somewhere. Let me find it. I’m pretty sure it’s in a spreadsheet on an image on my website.
[Here it is:] 1st [, 2nd & 3rd] of 3 models with various size cores:
http://i573.photobucket.com/albums/ss180/Lkindr/TB/Manuel.jpg

CC: Is that 4.15 km, for the radius of the core?

MM: Yes.

CC: So that’s the neutronium?

MM: Yes. I think the 4.15 figure relates to the FIRST calculation. I don’t think that I played much with the radius calculation of the core in other 2nd/3rd calculations and I’m not sure they’d be exactly the right radius. The first calc should be close.
- The main point I’m trying to make is, that there are at LEAST two kinds of updrafting plasmas and downdrafting plasmas. Some of that movement (the slower movements) are related to the basic currents from the sun toward the heliosphere, and some of those flows are directly related to flow INSIDE the loops as they traverse the surface (up or down).

CC: I’m thinking that the loops are just electrons, while the granules are positive ions. I’d like to see that movie, as I’m challenging whether or not “loops” constitute a model for the quiet photosphere.

MM: The loops are more like the filaments you’d find inside of an ordinary plasma ball IMO; only they’d be scaled to an appropriate size and shape. Even still, the basic mechanics of the loops are pretty much as you see them inside a plasma ball. The current flows through the filament.

LK2.8- MM, do you suggest that solar volcanoes that give rise to sunspots start out at mid-latitude and move slowly toward the equator, like the sunspots do? How could they do that on a rigid surface? And what would cause the volcanoes to form during maxima and not form during minima?

MM: The volcanic surface events are driven by subsurface plasma flows, created by the spin direction and orientation of the core with respect to the outer surface of the sun. As the poles of the core come into alignment with the poles of the outer crust, the sun experience a “quiet” phase, where few volcanic events are produced, and when they erupt, they tend to be smaller in size and tend to be located far above or below the equator. As the inner core rotates to a full 90 degrees out of sync with the outside crust, the inside poles (and associated plasma tornadoes), volcanic process tend to be released near the equator rather than the poles. The magnetic fields on the interior act to magnetize the crust as the currents flow through it. These create very different magnetic crust and flow pattern alignments all along the equator.

[Lloyd]

* The 8th discussion presumably will be underway shortly at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sCNaSCoaoyWa3WR4bYQUWm7ilYbcOnZtSnAWtGcDHYg/edit.

[Lloyd]

Discussion #8 - Part 1

LK1: CC, do you think you have your list of reasons for a cathode Sun, instead of an anode Sun, written up in final form yet to present to Don and Wal? If so, can we see it first?

CC: Here is a brief document, that doesn’t really say anything more than what I’ve already said. I think that this is enough for now, I guess. I think that everybody here is [in] agreement that the Sun is a cathode. Perhaps it’s [best?] just to ask for a brief response from others, rather than us working on a huge dissertation.
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=7875

LK2: Here’s one of BC’s paragraphs from last time.
- BC: Because of the problems with trying to tell what the sun is made of using spectral analysis, I went about it a different way. I tried to determine where the layers were on the sun. When I found white light flare[s] (I pretty much know that they only come from a solid arc), I knew there had to be something to this. So when a bunch of different features lined up with opacity minimum, I was convinced that this was the solid layer of the sun below the photosphere.
LK2: I asked if he could mention what other features lined up with the opacity minimum and whether it should actually be called maximum.

BC: I found features like UV emission, white light flares, coronal funnels, and flare features at the same (?) layer below the photosphere. I think you are right and I misspoke, Opacity minimum is the point below the photosphere where you can’t see any more. So if opacity is 1 then it is dense or un-transparent... Opacity can be 1 for plasma because of electronic interactions. High resolution observations of white-Light emissions from the opacity minimum during an X-class flare: http://solar.njit.edu/preprints/xu1432.pdf

MM: There is an image of a white light flare from the TRACE spacecraft by the way. That was also one of the more interesting things I saw that also convinced me that electrical discharges were responsible for at least some types of flares. White light TRACE image of a solar flare: http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/15%20April%202001%20WL.gif

BC: An arc has a tendency to erode the surface from which it emanates. So how long would a surface last, that was producing an arc, is the question. Well, if you were to think about an arc welder, the rod only last[s] a short time, because you are depositing the rod onto the workpiece. With the sun the solar surface is eroded, but redeposits as coronal rain. It leaves the surface as hypervelocity blobs in coronal loops. I am trying to use terms that are used by mainstream, so that they can be looked up by anybody that wishes to.

MM: The gold running difference images from LMSAL show that surface erosion process taking place directly after the flare occurs. Along the right, lower corner of the image, you’ll see areas that are changing rapidly as a result of the coronal loop discharges and changes that occur right after the flare. The flare/CME itself is really caused by a realignment of the current, and new current patterns emerge. The surface erosion is really quite rapid after the flare, but it is limited to the region where the coronal loops move to, directly after the CME. If you look at the original movie from the previous conversations, you’ll notice that the orientation of the coronal loops change dramatically after the flare and the bases of the loops are moving in the areas where surface erosion occurs.

CC: About BB radiation, I hear tell that the Sun puts out 5250 degree C BB radiation. You were saying that BB radiation can only come from a solid. But not many elements are solid at 5250 deg. C. I’m wondering if a high pressure plasma or supercritical fluid couldn’t produce the same radiation, as the Coulomb forces between the atoms might put up just as much of a fight as the covalent bonding that results in such high-frequency radiation. Anyway, I just wanted to ask.

BC: I have thought about this one awhile... So here is my answer. The bulk below the active surface is actually at less than iron melting temperature. The reason the solar surface looks ~ 5800 or whatever (in a sun spot it can be as low as 3800K) is because the surface temperature measurements are averages. The surface is like a cathode in that it has areas of high activity and areas of low activity. For instance at the base of a sunspot you will have a high temperature, because it is an areas of thermionic emission. In the arc cathode paper I think it describes the process from a cold cathode to a hot cathode. Initially, you have a cold surface with an electric field that emits a small amount of electrons. As the emission increases the surface increases in temperature and emits more electrons. The solar surface is emitting electrons at an energy of between 70 and 100eV producing a plasma temperature at the surface of 70,000 to 1.5 million K in that local area. This emission is the footprint of a coronal loop. So if you measure the surface with what is known as “solar moss”, solar loop foot prints etc., my contention is that you wind up with an average temperature of what is observed. This is over laid with all of the spectral lines that make up the solar spectrum plus the IR emission from the solar surface.

MM: I agree with everything you just said, by the way. The temperatures of the plasma layers var[y] with density. The current flow from the surface to the heliosphere flows through each plasma layer, and each plasma layer is mass separated by the element. The lighter elements form the corona (primarily hydrogen), and the corona is “thin”. The resistance effect of the current in that thin layer tends to generate higher temperatures in less dense material. Thicker layers like the chromosphere (mostly helium) tend to radiate at a lower temperature, because it’s more dense and the current meets less resistance. The predominantly Neon photosphere is thicker [and denser?] and cooler than either outer layer of helium and hydrogen. The photosphere like all layers has hydrogen (actually protons) flowing through it along with many impurities, but the EM field and gravity act to separate the plasmas IMO [into the layers just described?]. The further [down?] we go into the atmosphere, the cooler it gets. The silicon layer is actually BY FAR the thickest plasma layer. It’s closer to 5800K near the top, but it’s closer to 1200-2000K near the [iron?] surface.

BC: First ionization energy of silicon 8 eV..... has to be higher in the [upper?] solar atmosphere than the photosphere at .6 eV or 6000K...
CRC 8.15169eV
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionization_energies_of_the_elements_(data_page)

MM: What’s the ionization energy of neon, compared to silicon? I’m also counting on a gravitational effect by the way. I don’t believe that the mass separation process is purely an EM process, or at least I’m counting on gravity to come into play.

BC: First ionization energy for Neon is CRC 21.564eV; 11,000 * 21.564 = 237,204K [is needed] to remove that first electron.

MM: Probably THE most important prediction of the model on my website relates to the ionization state of Neon in the photosphere. In order … to “see” to the [iron] surface below, the Neon and pretty much the entire atmosphere has to be ionized to a fairly high degree. The elements would all have to be in a very high energy state, otherwise the higher energy wavelengths would simply be absorbed by the photosphere at 5900K. Without a constant stream of current to put the photosphere into a glow mode discharge, there is no way that 171A light would penetrate more than a few meters. The glow mode discharge of the photosphere is a key “prediction’ in pretty much every electric solar model. In a mass separated model, that glow mode discharge is really occurring in all the layers. They all glow, and they all glow most brightly in the elements that composes the bulk of that particular layer. That’s why the 305A images show the chromosphere most clearly. That layer is mostly helium and it’s also in a glow mode discharge energy state.

CC: Wouldn’t more density create more resistance?

BC: Not necessarily...

CC: Are you referring to things like hydrogen becoming a metal as a supercritical fluid? If so, I agree with that.

BC: Usually denser materials share electrons more easily. Gold.... As a plasma gets denser, it conducts more current due to a greater density of electrons.

CC: Oh, I see. OK, I’ll see if I can buff up on that in the future.** Thanks!

MM: Not in plasma, but maybe in a solid. Keep in mind that current carrying plasmas tend to create “filaments” like we find in an ordinary plasma ball. They are ‘more’ dense than the surrounding plasma and tend to carry the bulk of the current through the plasma. The current also generate a magnetic field that “pinches” the plasma into the filament and evacuates the regions directly around the filament which creates an insulating effect. The current will flow through the path of least resistance, and plasma is an “excellent’ conductor, just not a perfect one. Lighter plasma have a tougher time carrying bulk current.

CC: In terrestrial lightning strikes, the current does not pinch the surrounding plasma into a current-carrying thread. Rather, the current evacuates the discharge channel, and flows easily through the near-perfect vacuum. (Well, the channel is actually only about 2500 K, but in terrestrial terms, they call that a near perfect vacuum.) But the whole reason for dielectric breakdown is that ohmic heating causes the expansion of the plasma, and the thinner plasma is a better conductor, because there are fewer atoms that the electrons have to negotiate with. Hence it is inaccurate to think that plasma has to be present in order for there to be conductivity. At a constant density, hotter plasma is a better conductor, but that’s for a different reason -- the atomic velocities break the electric bonds, and let the electrons skip past the atoms. This isn’t dielectric breakdown, which is what I’d expect a discharge in the Sun to be.

BC: IF there doesn’t need to be a plasma for conductivity does that mean electricity has nothing to do with electrons? Or is there some temperature density ratio?

CC: I’m sticking with the standard atomic model, wherein electricity is the flow of charged particles (usually electrons). In engineering terminology, I think that a lot of what we’re talking about would be “electron drift” and not “electricity” per se. To an EE, “electricity” is the shifting of the electron cloud within a solid conductor.

MM: In terms of plasma, there are two forms of current, electrons and protons (positively charged ions). The electrons are lighter and do most of the work, but unlike a solid, the protons can also move around and produce magnetic fields in the process. They can also carry current. Mostly it works like you see in an ordinary plasma ball. The current bunches up into dense filaments. The ions tend to act as the conductor (like a solid) and the electrons flow through them in those threads. The effect on the ions is to create “twister” like filamentation in the plasma, up to and including all the “tornadoes” we see form in the solar atmosphere. The fact the ions can also move is useful in terms of the current, but since electrons are so much lighter than protons, it’s much easier for the electrons to flow than for ions to carry much of the total current.

BC: We are going to have to stick with a definition of electricity as the transfer of energy and no more.

CC: OK. Thinking...

BC: Because there are many mechanisms by which this can happen under the guise of electricity. Poynting Flux...
Even I am not sure based on Aetherometry and Dr Correa is really smart. ))

CC: Does that invalidate what I’m saying about discharge channels being voids? I’m trying to think of literature that I can cite for that.

BC: No. I think you are correct. But I bet it depends on what time you measure the plasma density in the channel!

CC: Yes! This is where triggered lightning studies have become so valuable, because lightning happens so fast, that if you don’t know where it’s going to hit, you can’t focus instrumentation on it, and there are data you can’t get. But now they’re getting a better picture of it. As the temp increases quite rapidly, you get an expanding discharge channel, which is supersonic in terms of the surrounding atmosphere, but simply at the speed of sound for the hotter plasma inside the channel. The current also steps up by increments, as each pulse creates a longer, hotter channel. The conductivity of this channel is sensed at the speed of light by surrounding charge disparities, and they flow toward the channel, creating the next pulse. This results in the discharge channel growing by “stepped leaders”. Bottom line: lightning is not just a simple spark -- it’s a very complex process, and it’s tough to study.

BC: I think it can be analogized by the process at the LAPD plasma lab. If you have a plasma channel with multiple “reconnection” events it will basically have the same dynamics as lightning.

MM: FYI, James Dungey who coined the term “reconnection’ wrote at least two papers linking ‘reconnection’ to “electrical discharges’. He fully understood that they were the same process. Today however the mainstream is clueless. They’ve forgotten everything he (and everyone else) told them.

CC: That’s the “large plasma device” at UCLA?
http://plasma.physics.ucla.edu/
- In the Earth’s atmosphere, resistance is a straight function of density, and that’s true all of the way up to the thermosphere, where the air is near the density of the interplanetary medium, and the resistance is almost nil.

BC: Is vacuum a good insulator? … I bet there is a curve for vacuum vs conductivity. Maybe I should say plasma density vs conductivity?

MM: It’s really a ‘path of least resistance’ issue. The dense plasma in the thread is a ‘better” conductor than the evacuated areas around the thread. The electrons will simply go with the flow.

CC: As you noted above, it IS a complex topic. But the literature that I found stated that electron drift velocity can be calculated as the electric field minus the inertial force of the electron (that resists its acceleration, though this is slight), minus the number of atoms that the electrons have to negotiate, there being a lag if the electron goes into orbit around a nucleus and then gets broken out of that orbit. In a perfect vacuum, electrons would go relativistic almost instantaneously. I really think that the confusion concerning vacuums being conductors or insulators is all coming from the EE conceptualization of electricity as the shifting of the electron cloud in a solid conductor, which doesn’t generalize to electron drifts in plasma.

BC: Look up Bill Beatty electricity? Static electricity.
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/emotor/statelec.html

CC: Yes, I consider him to be the world’s practical expert. I could stand to go through his site again.

LK: I doubt that electrons orbit, but that discussion will have to wait a while.

BC: Yep!!!

CC: I hear ya. But still, there is a lag time, depending on the mean free path. At least that’s what I found on the net. I can find the link (the same one I posted in a similar discussion on t’bolts). I understand that this is a contentious issue, and we should take nothing in quantum mechanics for granted. I “think” that at the macroscopic level, it all averages out, and the low level way of describing it is all just terminological.

LK: Didn’t CC question the 100eV previously? Or was it just the temperature derived from it? Or was it vice versa?

BC: I think he wanted to know how the temperature was derived, that basically atomic/molecular speed is related to energy measured in Electron Volts. Heat is motion.

CC: OK, I’m starting to understand what you’re saying a bit better. But I’m still having a hard time generaliz[ing] the coronal loop model into an explanation for the quiet Sun. Are you saying that when there are no sunspots, the loops are still there, but we just don’t see them? Where are the footpoints? In the center of the granules?

[LK: Let’s get the details for the loop-heating granules model asap.**]

MM: Loops are CONSTANTLY traversing the solar atmosphere, during “quiet” times as well as during sunspot activity. They are usually “small”, a few kilometers at most. A ‘few’ grow to be hundreds of kilometers in size A tiny percentage grow large enough to be seen and recognized as “loops” in satellite images. Only a miniscule percentage are large enough to exit the photosphere and reenter the surface of the photosphere. These typically occur during active cycles, or around active regions. They are the rare exception to an otherwise “small loop” rule. The effect of the larger loops on the surface of the photosphere becomes apparent in magnetogram images. The white and black dots on the surface are directly related to the loops that traverse that region. Current flows up through that layer, and then down back into the layer. It leaves magnetic field “dots” on the surface of the photosphere in magnetogram images. The coronal loops are always flowing through the atmosphere, but only the largest ones have much effect on the surface of the photosphere in terms of the magnetic field observations. The loops also have a noticeable effect in the 1600A and 1700A, producing bright “dots” where the loops exit and enter the photosphere.

LK3: BC, you previously said in your Aether Battery Iron Sun thread, I think, that the features on the Sun are similarly observable microscopically in arc discharges from solid metal cathodes. Can you tell us specifically which such features you meant and what sources you can refer us to for images (and data)?

[LK: No reply as yet.]

[Lloyd]

Discussion #8 - Part 2

LK4A: These are MM’s recent statements on the TB forum.
- Neon and other elements in the photosphere have to be at similar (+3, +4 etc) energy/ionization states in order for iron ion wavelengths to actually penetrate that layer, (seen in satellite images)
- Were the glow mode discharge absent, no iron ion light would be able to penetrate more than a few meters into that surface before being completely absorbed.
LK4A: MM, will you give us references for that? It sounds very persuasive.

MM: FYI, this “prediction’ came from one of the very few “useful” conversations I had with Ben and Sol at JREF. Both of them pointed out that 171A and high energy wavelengths of light would pretty much be instantly absorbed by a Neon layer if that layer was radiating at 5800K without any other energy input. It would in fact be absorbed in less than 10 meters in all likelihood and, therefore, no light would be able to be seen under the first 10-100 meters, even with large discharges.

LK: Do you have references**? Where would one learn this?

MM: It’s really related to the ionization states and energy states of elements and the effect of light on such objects. The higher energy wavelengths tend to interact with the electrons in the outer shells of the various elements. If the element isn’t in a high energy state when the photon passes through, the photon tends to knock loose one of the electrons from its valence shell. If the element is ionized to [a] higher energy state, however, the photons [don’t] interact much with it, and it passes on through. In order for the higher energy wavelengths to ‘pass on through’, the Neon layer has to be in a +4 energy state, otherwise the photon will generate a photoionization effect. The purpose of my proposed experiment [to the Thunderbolts forum] was to put that concept to the test and to see what we actually observe at such wavelengths (Ne+4 wavelengths). If the plasma-separated Birkeland model on my website is correct, we ‘should’ see a photosphere that is brightly lit, pretty much like any white light image from the sun. The Neon should be in a glow mode state.
- Note that such an observation would ultimately also serve as a falsification of standard theory. According to standard theory, the photosphere isn’t nearly hot enough to put Neon into such a high energy state. They don’t even consider any kind of current flow in terms of net energy in that layer. Any energy state in the standard model should relate strictly to temperate and, if I recall, Neon shouldn’t even BE ionized at all at 5800K. [See:] The effect of photoionization on elements: http://www.answers.com/topic/photoionization

CC: I’m still mulling over this. As I’ve said in the previous discussions, I’m questioning whether there is a direct relationship between temperature and degree of ionization. The reason is that plasma can be ionized by an electric field, and act like it is way hotter. I’m not exactly sure what the significance of this is, from your perspective, but I’m thinking that some of the physical limitations should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, when we go to think of energy sources, we set limits. There are also hydrostatic equilibria that I’m looking at.

MM: It works much like an ordinary Neon light bulb (older style). The electrons are constantly flowing through the plasma and they give a kinetic KICK to anything in their path. In addition, the light from the loops also ionizes elements to higher energy states. It’s the constant movement of charged particles through the plasma that keeps the plasma in a higher kinetic energy state than it otherwise would be. It’s not so much the ambient ion temperature you have to consider, but also the kinetic energy [&] temperature of the electrons. According to Alfven, they can vary by whole orders of magnitude. The constant flow of current is what keeps the elements in a high kinetic energy state.

CC: OK, so temperature can cause ionization, and ohmic heating can cause temperature, which can cause ionization. And electric currents can also knock things loose. And electric currents can generate photons, and photoionization can cause ionization. But electric fields can also cause ionization.

MM: Light from the loops can cause ionization. Electron glow mode discharges cause ionization. Even “tired light” theories are based on all photons passing on some of their kinetic energy to electrons … and/or other charged particles in plasma. As you said, electric fields cause ionization as well. I tend to look at it in terms of “total kinetic energy”, and there are MANY of them to work with and to consider. The mainstream model is PRIMITIVE beyond primitive. It’s based on the idea that only ion temperature matters. According to their model, no Neon should even be ionized to a +1 state in the photosphere. There isn’t enough kinetic energy in their model to explain higher energy state ions. That is their Achilles heel IMO.

CC: I think that they have more Achilles heels than feet! As I mentioned elsewhere here, I intend to run the numbers for the hydrostatic equilibria of the plasmas in question, and I think that the Dalsgaard model is going to go supernova on us [i.e. self-destruct?]. Truthfully, the Dalsgaard model is just an energy budget. In the 1950s, scientists were so proud of themselves that they had discovered nuclear fusion, that they ran the numbers for a fusion furnace Sun, and announced to the world that they had figured it out. “Assuming” that the energy source is hydrogen fusion, and with a known power output, then how much fusion do you need to get that power output[?] This was all before we knew the mass of the Sun, and could check the model against the physical limits of the plasmas. For fusion to occur in the core, at the pressures in question, the only possibility is that this is hydrogen in the core. But I think that with what we know now, that’s untenable. Anyway, I’m thinking that the Dalsgaard model has to be dismissed rigorously**, before anybody will consider a new model. As long as people are taking it as fact, because PhDs are saying it, we’re proposing a solution to a non-problem for them.

MM: I agree. There a many weaknesses in their model. I just think one good gander at the neon signatures from the sun would really rattle their cage. I don’t believe they would have a clue how to explain such a high energy state of neon at 5800K.
- Speaking of Achilles heels, I just ran across two papers on plasma redshift that you should look at. The primary reason the mainstream believes in an expansion/acceleration process is due to their interpretation of redshift. Until a few years ago, there were no lab measurements of plasma redshift. However that has all changed as of the last couple of years. [See:] Plasma redshift has been confirmed in the lab!: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0030402608000089 - Cosmological implications of plasma redshift: http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0010v1.pdf

LK4B: This is one of MM’s paragraphs from last time.
MM: I don’t believe that the photosphere density at the surface is actually as thin as commonly believed. … The Silicon plasma layer under the photosphere is MUCH thicker and much cooler than the photosphere, particularly near the bottom of that layer. It’s approximately 3500-4000 kilometers and it gets much cooler as we go deeper into the atmosphere from about 5500 Kelvin at the top of that layer, to about 2000K at the base of that Silicon plasma layer. That temperature gradient is partly due to the constant flow of current from the surface that drives the heat upward, and away from the sun. That heat ultimately is carried by the current and carried up and away from the rigid surface and ends up convecting as heat at the surface of the photosphere.
LK4B: Does anyone know of a way to determine the density of the sub-photosphere layer, assuming it’s plasma Silicon? MM, how do you determine the depth and temperature of the sub-photosphere layer?

MM: Helioseismology is still the best technology for this work IMO. I haven’t kept up recently with the SDO papers on this topic, but I think I’ll spend some time on that this weekend.

LK: You’ve never answered CC on his version of the layering supposedly based on helioseismology, with layers at .27 and .7R, I believe. Doesn’t helioseismology show those radii? (R means solar radius. .7R means 7/10 of the solar radius) - Have you heard of CC’s figures before? I.e. .27 and .7R? “We’ll” have to ask CC how certain his figures are.

MM: I’ve spent most of my time studying the EXTERIOR of the sun, and I haven’t really spent a whole lot of time looking at the NEWER helioseismology data from SDO yet. My impression from the previous work with SOHO is that, yes, there are layering processes going on inside the sun, but most of these were based on ‘models’ (guestimations of density) they created beforehand, and the resolution was pretty limited. SDO should be able to nail those number[s] more precisely. I do recall seeing the .7R figure in one of Kosovichev’s earlier papers on stratification. I can’t recall seeing anything at .27[R] per se, but it’s been quite some time since I’ve reviewed that literature. I’ll have to take a closer look. I suspect CC knows more about those interior numbers than I do at the moment.

LK: CC, how reliable do you think those figures are?

CC: This comes primarily from helioseismic shadows, which we’ve known about for a long time. I think that the layers are definitely there.

LK: And are those radii the only likely interpretations to make of those shadows?

MM: Keep in mind that I would expect that the interior would be layered as well, perhaps the way CC envisions, or perhaps just as separate plasma layers like the exterior.

LK: For now I’d just like to know from CC if that is the only reasonable way to interpret the shadows. Eh, CC? - What have they compared them (the surface waves?) to, that they felt confident with those estimates?

CC: There is definitely some sort of difference in physical properties that accounts for this. For the core, I think that extreme compression has forced the core into something that behaves as one big solid, and waves do not pass through it because there are not the degrees of freedom at the pressure for a wave to propagate. So anything smacking into the core would have to move the entire core in order for a wave to propagate out the other side, and the waves bouncing around inside the Sun just aren’t powerful enough to do this. The super-hot hydrogen in the standard model should let waves pass straight through, but a supercritical liquid, well, a super-duper-critical liquid would not. As for the boundary between the “radiative” zone [.7R] and the convective zone, I think that it’s a difference between iron plasma below a liquid helium layer, and the wave transmission speeds reveal the boundary.

LK: So do waves penetrate the Sun’s core? Or is there a portion that doesn’t pass waves?

CC: P-waves don’t pass through the core.

LK: Is that where the .27 or so R comes from?

CC: AFAIK.

LK: Got any references**, like on your site maybe?

CC: I’ll have to get back to you on that. Good question. I should double-check all of this, as the assumptions that I’m making have implications throughout the rest of the model.
- As concerns the possibility that there are other interpretations, I’m open to suggestions.

MM: Whatever you decide to do with the wave propagation in your core, it needs to address the fact that we can use those waves to image the far side of the sun rather accurately, I might add. I’m not sure the wave must pass directly through the middle of the sun/core, but the waves do have to pass through the sun. [See:] Farside observations of the sun using heliosiesmology techniques: http://spaceweather.com/glossary/farside.html
- [See:] Interior layering options to consider: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/nasa-astronaut-don-pettit-bubble-space_n_1445773.html

LK: Ah, yes, the air bubble inside a water sphere in space. Do surface waves on those water spheres detect the [air bubble] core?

MM: The EM fields of the universe tend to have fairly unusual effects on spheres in space. Keep in mind that Brant’s “core” model (less dense core with a shell) is a possibility that has to be taken seriously. There’s no guarantee that gravity is the only feature that affects the density of the core.

[LK: I think the hint is that p-waves would not pass through a hollow interior either and they would thus produce the shadows or whatever on the far side of the Sun.]

CC: Actually, I’ve been working on this, and I’d like to ask Brant a question. I need to find high-P, high-T phase diagrams for the elements. I have found a couple of them, but it has been slow going, and if you know where I could find all of them in one place, that would be super.

BC: That is a real problem. It is related to what I work on in my job, so I am kinda familiar. First, I was told by an experimentalist that most of the opacity and phase diagrams are off. I am still not sure why, but I think it has to do with with simulations being taken as literal. So then, what elements are you looking for?

CC: The pressure for liquid hydrogen at 6000 deg C is quoted as 1,000,000 bars, while for liquid iron at the same temperature it’s 70.79 bars.

LK: Does that mean 1 million atmospheres will raise the temperature of hydrogen to 6,000 deg C?

CC: No. To compress hydrogen with 1 million atm (i.e., bars) and ONLY get 6000 K, the hydrogen would have to be almost at absolute zero to begin with.

LK: That might be kind of what I meant.

CC: Anyway, I’m wondering if the number isn’t what Brant is saying, … just a modeled extrapolation. Hydrogen being so common, I find it odd that we don’t have reliable experimental results for all of these things. Granted it’s an extreme range thing, not what you’d need to know in your typical hydrogen engineering application, but still.

BC: Hydrogen is very well studied. So I would believe most of the numbers for hydrogen. The one that I’m not sure of is extinction numbers. In other words, do you get a black body from a plasma a bizillion miles thick? I don’t believe that is the case. You would only see [a?] line at the edge of the plasma.

CC: And you wouldn’t even expect a line actually, by normal hydrostatic laws -- the [solar] density should thin out gradually, without a distinct limb.

BC: Most likely with a gravity influenced plasma. But you do see the photosphere.

CC: So this is what keeps prodding me to question, because, yes, it is a powerful gravitational field, but the plasma still should thin out at the edge. The density drop-off in the photosphere just isn’t possible with the laws of hydrostatics. It’s like trying to drain half of a pool -- but just the left half, leaving the right half still there, with nothing pressing up against it. This just isn’t possible. Without extra plasma above the photosphere, you’re not going to get a distinct edge there. This is why I’m looking at charged double-layers to supply that force.

MM: You’re right, it’s a double layering effect and there is a chromosphere sitting on top of the photosphere. It’s providing some of the gravitational force that you’re looking for. I suspect that the double-layering process and the mass separation process play a role in the “distinctiveness’ of the edge, as you call it.

CC: All in all, the calculations I’m going to attempt** might prove to be very interesting. I don’t think that there is enough gravitational force to keep the Sun organized, even if the temp is only 6000 K throughout, much less 15 MK in the core, like the standard model states. Frankly, I don’t think that this would create a star -- it would create a hydrostatic bomb! But, when I go to do the FEA [finite element analysis] on the masses, G, and P, even with heavier elements, I think I’ll still come up short, but, when I add in ionization levels, given the pressure and the Coulomb forces, I’m thinking that I might get into the right neighborhood.
- Brant, the reason why I’m going to start with everything at 6000 K is that I’m assuming that, with the photosphere at that temperature (average) for millions of years, and in the absence of any thermal insulator, the interior should be the same temperature, unless electric fields are removing degrees of freedom, and thereby lowering the temperature artificially. This doesn’t eliminate your contention that the iron is much cooler, but it does say that powerful electric fields would be present.

LK: A blow torch doesn’t get as hot as the flame it makes. Couldn’t the Sun be like that?

MM: YES! Keep in mind that electron[s] (and the protons the[y] drag with them) are constantly flowing AWAY FROM the surface, carrying excess heat with them as they go. The flow of current moves excess heat up and away from the surface at all times.

CC: But what if the flame completely surrounded the torch?

BC: So, if the sun was completely surrounded by a 6000K heat source, why doesn’t it melt?
- Melting assumes perfect heat capture by the surrounding plasma. NOT!!! IR escapes a plasma. Spitzer telescope.
High intensity UV and EUV escapes a thin plasma.
- In response to CC. the gravity of the sun is based on the standard model which we know is flawed. It’s possible that the gravity on the solar surface is not as strong as they say.

CC: I hear ya. I’m going to try calculating it**, assuming that G is correct, but that G isn’t enough; you need some E in there. I’ll let the numbers do the telling, but, if I can get the proper overall density, without anything compressed [too] far above its liquid density, and with helioseismic boundaries at the proper levels (.27 & .70 SR), I’ll suspect that I’m on the right [track].

LK: BC, your model in the TB forum thread mentioned solid cathodes with arcs that are hotter than the cathodes.

BC: Absolutely. Arcs only happen over a portion of the cathode. As they happen, they only erode the local surface as a spot, due to thermionic emission.

CC: Here’s a phase diagram for hydrogen that I found. The 6000 K temperature that I’m interested in is 10^3.78 K on the X axis in the diagram. [See:] http://www.hydropole.ch/index.php?go=hydrogen_about

BC: That seems odd. 1000psi? Iron would be a liquid at 6000, if not ionized. First ionization energy for iron is 7.9024. 7.9024 * 11 000 = 86 926.4 degrees kelvin. {11000 degrees kelvin per 1 Electron volt.} So that, say that [iron] is just molten on the solar surface, this is the reason why there are hyper-velocity blobs of material moving up the coronal loops.

CC: [Re the question for Brant on “high-P, high-T phase diagrams for the elements”] I really just need osmium, platinum, nickel, iron, helium, and hydrogen, in order to test my model. For Michael’s model I’d need neon, silicon, and a few others [like iron].
- The reason is that I’m working on a little program** (< 2 pages of code probably) that will calculate the hydrostatic equilibrium for the various elements. I suspect that this is going to blow up the Dalsgaard model with a big bang. But it may reveal problems with my model as well, so it’s a worthwhile exercise.
- The strategy is [to] divide the volume of the Sun into 1000 columns, and then divide the columns into 100 segments [each]. That will give me 100,000 parcels. For each parcel, I’ll assign an element, and then come up with an initial guess of the mass of the parcel. Then I can calculate the gravitational attraction between each parcel and each other parcel, and add it all up, to get the weight of each parcel. Knowing that, I can start at the top of the column, and add the weight of each parcel to get the pressure. Knowing the pressure, I can re-calculate the density, and re-assign the mass for each parcel, and then re-calculate the gravitational attraction, weight, etc. So it’s essentially a finite element analysis (FEA) approach.