Latest ESA-Cluster Article (?!?!?)

[amzolt]

I would love some EU-informed feedback on this article about Cluster's latest "findings" about "turbulence" and "reconnection" in the earth's magnetosphere:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object ... ctid=44480

[MGmirkin]

In March 2007, a Nature Physics publication reported for the first time that not only did turbulence exist in the magnetosheath in the form of many small magnetic islands (with a typical size of 100 km), but also that magnetic reconnection occurred within these islands.

I'd be interested to know how they define a "magnetic island..." We know that magnetic reconnection simply doesn't work as advertised. Magnetic field lines are not real entities and cannot break, snap, reconnect, etc. According to Maxwell's equations, at least. It's the same reasoning behind there being no magnetic monopoles and no "open" field lines.

(Magnetic Monopoles?)
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/e ... ode35.html

In conclusion, all steady magnetic fields in the Universe are generated by circulating electric currents of some description. Such fields are solenoidal: that is, they never begin or end, and satisfy the ... second of Maxwell's equations. Essentially, it says that there is no such thing as a magnetic monopole.

Particularly, the same number of "lines of force" (term used loosely, knowing that it's only a visual aid and doesn't describe actual lines or entities in real-world 3D space) on a diagram must enter a given surface as left the surface and vice versa. If 5 lines exit, 5 lines MUST return (not 1, not 4, not 6). There are no dangling loose ends flapping in the breeze as long as the screen or paper is large enough in scope. If 3 lines go off the page or screen, 3 more lines have to re-enter the page somewhere to balance.

With respect to "magnetic reconnection," one might point to Los Alamos, who seem to know their plasma physics and not be shy about saying so:

(Roping in Magnetic Fields)
https://www.lanl.gov/science/1663/spotlight.php

At the Sun's edge, in a region called the heliosphere, magnetic fields and electrical currents constantly align and twist themselves in massive 3-D structures called "magnetic flux ropes." These high-tension ropes are unstable and tend to kink and relax into helical configurations (through what theorists call the kink instability). Occasionally, a rope end—which was previously "tied" to the Sun's surface—breaks loose, ejecting electrically charged gas called plasma and producing solar flares that can wreak havoc with everything from satellites to electrical power grids.

Once observed only in places like the Sun's surface, flux ropes are now being created by Los Alamos scientists in the laboratory, making it possible to tie experimental data to prior theoretical analyses. As reported in the July 7, 2006, Physical Review Letters, a small plasma gun shoots plasma into a vacuum. The plasma then flows along an externally produced magnetic field to form plasma-current filaments, or flexible wires composed of plasma. These "mini flux ropes" are photographed and studied with probe measurements as they wind helically around an imaginary central axis (see photo sequence at left).

This close-up study can shed light on the effects of flux ropes in everything from the Earth's magnetosphere to the giant astrophysical jets and radio lobes associated with active galaxies throughout the universe. According to Los Alamos experimentalist Thomas Intrator, "The more we learn in the laboratory, the more we'll know about how solar flares are produced and how the energy locked up in magnetic fields affects the large-scale structure of the universe."

Granted the article only mentioned "flux ropes," but makes pretty clear in the opening statement that this has to do with electric currents following magnetic field lines (or, moving according to the strength and direction of the magnetic field visually represented by the "lines"). Typical astro-speak about "flux ropes" tends to include "reconnection."

However, reconnection has been called false by Hannes Alfvén, and more recently by Don Scott.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[amzolt]

Thanks for the info.

I'll have to check those links out!

[Solar]

I would love some EU-informed feedback on this article about Cluster's latest "findings" about "turbulence" and "reconnection" in the earth's magnetosphere:

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object ... ctid=44480

"Turbulence" is the mainstream buzz word for plasma instabilities. They also use this word in relation to "anomalous" when it is that there is no understanding of the electromotive force in relation to the driver of motion in plasma (aka "anomolus transport" & "bulk flow") as the electrical force 'cellularizes' zones and regions of interacting plasma (the Earth's magnetosphere is one plasma 'system' which resides in an even larger plasma 'system' the Sun's heliosphere, more properly called Langmuir sheath.

...not only did turbulence exist in the magnetosheath in the form of many small magnetic islands (with a typical size of 100 km), but also that magnetic reconnection occurred within these islands. The observations showed that the turbulent plasma is accelerated and heated during the reconnection process. The discovery of reconnection in turbulent plasma has significant implications for the study of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, where both turbulence and reconnection naturally develop and thus where turbulent reconnection is very likely to occur...

I would think that these so called "magnetic islands" might be related to diocotron instabilities. This is the plasma version of the Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability and they can occur at the boundary of two interacting plasma regimes such as the Earth's magnetosphere and its interaction with the Sun's solar wind. Electro-plasma vortices or 'eddy currents' in other words. Like the 'swrils' seen here in the clouds of Jupiter where two different 'flow' patterns interface. You can get them where two different plasma interface as well. Only they're electromagnetic.

I thought the THEMIS website had good animations of this but I can no longer find them. Do you still have them Michael?

[amzolt]

This part of the article that you quoted bothers me:

"The discovery of reconnection in turbulent plasma has significant implications for the study of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, where both turbulence and reconnection naturally develop and thus where turbulent reconnection is very likely to occur..."

Are they going to take their shoddy theories and pretend that the "discovery" of reconnection be retrofitted onto plasma experiments in the lab?!?

[Solar]

This part of the article that you quoted bothers me:

"The discovery of reconnection in turbulent plasma has significant implications for the study of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, where both turbulence and reconnection naturally develop and thus where turbulent reconnection is very likely to occur..."

Are they going to take their shoddy theories and pretend that the "discovery" of reconnection be retrofitted onto plasma experiments in the lab?!?

Yes. Its not a matter of whether or not they're going to do as you've suggested. They've already "retrofitted" it onto plasma experiments as relates fusion. That is why the photo of the ITER fusion reactor device is sitting next to the SOHO animation of solar flares with those quotes in the caption. Take for example the ideas expressed in this article from 2002:

Magnetic reconnection is also an important process in some experimental fusion energy reactors that use magnetic fields to confine the plasma.
(...)
researchers hope to elucidate fundamental plasma physics processes on the sun and understand new plasma structures in magnetic confinement fusion machines.- First 3-D Magnetic Reconnection Measurements

I think what may also be helpful in helping to accentuate the differences between the above 'mainstream' approach and a more fundamentally sound approach to the dynamics of electricity and plasma in the lab and in the cosmos would be to give one's self an overview of Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion Lecture.

Make sure to watch the video. There are a couple of quick references to the work of 'focus fusion' as relates the "jets" of galaxies. But also, in particular reference to the articles mentioned in this thread, note instead how Lerner worked with the plasma instabilities as opposed to trying to 'confine' them as with tokamaks/spheromaks.

Astronomers and astrophysicists don't make good plasma physicist; but it appears to work great the other way around.

[amzolt]

Fascinating video!!

So good to see practical science and engineering being underpinned by Plasma Physics!!!

Did they get the $2,000,000?

[Solar]

Not sure how much. According to a PESWiki article things are looking good. Makes me wonder how much has been spent on the other fusion models though?

Nonetheless, the manner in which the electro-plasma dynamics are explained - "jets", filamentation of currents, formation of a central plasmoid etc appears applicable to cosmology as opposed to theoretical and paradoxical"black holes" from which nothing is supposed to escape.

When coupled with "magnetic reconnection" - a psychological aberration describing magnetic fields without including the electric currents known to produce them - one can ascertain that plasma physics has long established a more accurate dynamical cause effect relationship applicable to cosmology and the formation of celestial 'structure'.

[amzolt]

According to that article:

"In a phone interview on Feb. 10, Eric Lerner, President of LPP, said that they are under way, renting a facility, hiring two physicists, and ordering equipment."

That's with $1.2million and proof-of-concept in two years...

[Solar]

And I certainly hope something comes of it. FocusFusion.org

Until then, and afterwards, the plasma physics and its cosmological implications need also to be a point of 'focus'.

[MGmirkin]

Are they going to take their shoddy theories and pretend that the "discovery" of reconnection be retrofitted onto plasma experiments in the lab?!?

The part of your quote that bothers me is that, well, yeah... They've kind of been doing that for a while. Plasma physicists have been studying how plasmas ACTUALLY work for quite a while now. Astronomers seem to have poorly reinvented the wheel with "reconnection." They now seem to want to tell lab physicists how they think things should work in their experiments (having apparently not read up on how things DON'T work).

See the link to Don Scott's paper I provided in my original response. See also the Thunderblog I wrote on the topic to paraphrase Don with respect to certain Cluster and/or THEMIS findings about "reconnection"... I guess see Don's Thunderblog on similar topics, too.

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[amzolt]

Thanks for that link to Scott's paper. I'm nearly ready to read his book again...

[MGmirkin]

Should be fun. Come to think of it I need to more thoroughly read it. I skimmed some of the fun parts of interest at the time, but haven't gone through it word-for-word yet. Got about 1/3 of the way through Arp's "Seeing Red" the traditional way, though.

~Michael Gmirkin