Lloyd wrote:Doesn't the Sun's magnetic field reverse polarity at the end of each 11 year cycle? So that would make a 22 year cycle in which the field is north on "top" for 11 years and then north on "bottom" for the next 11 years. Is this right?
Yes.
Lloyd wrote:If so, how does it fit in with what you explained about the active and quiet phases caused by the Sun's differential rotation?
The Sun is a dynamo, which generates a magnetic field as it rotates. This requires a charge separation, which my model incorporates, as charged double-layers. If all of the matter in the Sun was neutral, the rotation wouldn't generate a net magnetic field, since the fields from positive and negative charges would cancel each other out. But if there are charged double-layers, and if they rotate at different rates, the faster one generates the dominant field. So how could the polarity flip? The faster layer has to slow down, and the slower layer speeds up. So the charged double-layers take 11 year turns in generating the dominant field. This is called "torsional oscillation", which scientists have known about for some time, including the fact that it's tied to the solar cycle. But they can't connect the dots with the solar dynamo, because they have the Sun as totally quasi-neutral, meaning that they have no idea how the Sun generates a magnetic field in the first place, much less one that alternates.
My model goes on to explain how differential rotation helps toggle the polarity. The following diagram shows how the magnetic field changes through the cycle. In the "early active phase", a surge in the differential rotation generates a powerful field in the equatorial region that closes on itself locally, without involving the higher latitudes. This field still has the same polarity, but it splits the field in the mid-latitudes. That's where a field with an opposite polarity forms, to bridge the split. Then, as the width of the equatorial band shrinks in the "late active phase", its field gets smaller, and the bridging field takes up the slack. Once the bridging field has expanded to the point that there is more of that polarity than the other, it over-rides the other fields, and becomes the dominant field for the next 11 years.
http://qdl.scs-inc.us/2ndParty/Images/C ... ly_wbg.png
Lloyd wrote:You said you agree with Scott "that there are charge separations, inside the Sun, between the Sun and the heliosphere, and within the heliosphere itself." Did you mean in the second case "between the Sun and the heliopause" or "... heliosphere"?
No, I meant "heliosphere". More specifically, the heliosphere within 10 AU. In my model, the heliopause is a different domain.
Lloyd wrote:And how do you and Scott differ on these separations?
In my model, the Sun has 5 charged layers, of alternating sign. The core is positively charged; the radiative zone is negatively charged, and there is a PNP configuration in the convective zone. The Sun as a whole is net neutral, but for the discrepancies caused by CMEs, which affect a net loss of positive charge, driving an equal-but-opposite electron drift. Out in the heliosphere, in the first 10 AU, there is a net positive charge, which would only get fully neutralized if the Sun stopped producing CMEs. From 10 to 100 AU, the heliosphere is neutral, and without any electric currents. Lastly, the inside of the heliopause is positively charged, and the outside is negatively charged. This is because particles in the interstellar winds impinging on the heliosphere get their electrons stripped in collisions. But like I said, that's a different domain, because there is neither a field or a current associated with that charge separation in the vast space between 10 and 100 AU.
In Scott's model, the Sun simply has a net positive charge, and the heliopause has a net negative charge. Then, there is a steady flow of +ions out of the Sun toward the heliopause.
Lloyd wrote:And how is Scott wrong?
1. In any electric field, electrons respond far more quickly than +ions, due to their smaller inertial forces. So if the field was like Scott says it is, the +ions wouldn't be flowing out of the Sun -- the electrons would be zipping in from the heliopause. But what we actually see is a steady stream of +ions and electrons away from the Sun, with the electrons moving faster than the +ions within the first 10 AU, and only quasi-neutral particles expanding past 10 AU.
2. Even in weak electric fields, if the resistance is slight, electrons can quickly get accelerated to relativistic velocities. When they do, they generate powerful magnetic fields that pinch the electron streams down into discrete discharge channels. Within these channels, collisions with any remaining +ions knock the ions out of the channels, leaving nothing at all to impede the flow of the electrons. Thus the discharge channels become near perfect conductors. As such, the electron streams will stay consolidated until they get to the anode. If this was how the Sun worked, we would expect for there to be a finite number of discrete discharge channels intersecting with the Sun's surface, like a plasma lamp. These would be impossible to miss, as they would be carrying all of the current. Yet we look in the vicinity of the Sun, and we see none of this.
3. In the excellent conductivity of the plasma, a sustained current requires an amp regulator, or all of the potential will get discharged in an instant. Yet Scott's DL model is unrealistic. He has the photosphere positively charged, and then, in the chromosphere, there is a double-layer, with the positive charge facing inward, and the negative charge facing outward. Repulsion between the inner aspect of that DL and the photosphere is what throttles the current -- only +ions capable of making it past that repulsion get to flow out into the heliosphere. But that begs unanswerable questions:
a) If the DL is exerting electrostatic force on the photosphere to regulate the current, then the photosphere is likewise exerting the exact same force on the DL. So what counters the force being exerted on the DL, to keep it in place? And don't answer that it's gravity, because gravity is no match for the electric force, if the two are pitted against each other.
b) DLs in plasma are temporary, and their life expectancy is a straight function of the resistance, which in the chromosphere will be slight. So what keeps the DLs from recombining?
c) If something
did keep the DL organized, +ions escaping from the Sun, getting past the positive layer and then sliding down the potential gradient through the negative layer, would surely recombine with negative charges there. If so, recombination in the outer DL would be the source of the photons that we get from the Sun. In other words, the upper chromosphere would be the photosphere, not the photosphere. And that would be just wrong.
d) Positive ions recombining with electrons in the upper chromosphere would eliminate the charge in that layer, thus eliminating the DL amp regulator.
All in all, it isn't that there is something wrong with Scott's model. I can't find anything that's right about it. All of the structural members are either physically impossible, or the opposite from what is actually observed.
Lloyd wrote:You said Scott said Q or E cannot be measured, but you think it can be, using the Stark and Zeeman effects on solar spectra. Can Brant help with that?
Last I heard, Brant was still working on his cometary flare-up model. With Siding Spring due for a Martian fly-by on the 19
th of this month, I suppose he has his hands full with that. CosmicLettuce said that he would work up the webpages to support data analysis, and then Brant and/or myself will set up the hosting. This looks promising, but it will take some industrial strength physics, to make sure that we get it right. Both Brant and CosmicLettuce have more hands-on experience with that kind of thing, so I'll defer to them. But I can certainly use the results, because the strength of the E-field bears directly on my estimates of the power (watts = volts * amps). I'm currently using Alfven's estimate of 1.6 GV, but that was from 1941, and I never found a more recent estimate. Anything within an order of magnitude of that wouldn't blow up my numbers, considering the roughness of the other numbers, such as the mass of CMEs, the degree of ionization in CMEs, etc. Two orders of magnitude would be cause for concern.
I don't know where to even begin plugging numbers into Scott's model, since he has never stipulated anything like that.
Lloyd wrote:What data would prove the Sun is powered at least in part by galactic currents? You've stated before that, if galactic currents powered the Sun, there should be very visible powerful electric arcs like those seen in plasma globes and maybe Tesla coils, but between the Sun and the heliopause. Can you put specific numbers on that? Like how wide would the arcs be and how long and maybe how bright etc?
If the Sun was powered by galactic currents, the discharge wouldn't be just from the Sun to the heliopause -- it would be from the Sun out into the interstellar medium, and beyond. To drive such a current, we'd have to be in an electric field, so I'd really expect just one incoming and one outgoing discharge channel. The Sun wouldn't be a sphere -- it would be a tube. Anyway, I don't know where to begin with something so unrealistic.
Lloyd wrote:I think Michael Mozina also stated before that such galactic currents should have very strong magnetic fields easily measured from somewhere, I guess here on Earth or on satellites somewhere. Do you agree?
Yes -- aside from that big, bright tube across the daytime sky, there would be a magnetic field, which could be measured (e.g., by the synchrotron radiation). But nope, it isn't there.
Lloyd wrote:Michael also said, if stars are merely loads on galactic circuits, like electric lights are loads on home electric circuits, the generators of the currents have to be somewhere.
The more fundamental question is what forces the current through the stars? A perfect vacuum is a perfect conductor, and galactic currents should go around stars, not through them, because the interstellar medium is a better vacuum than the heliosphere. But yes, for there to be a current with a load on it, there has to be a generator, and no, to my knowledge, the EU doesn't suggest any mechanisms for that. I think I heard that Thornhill's position on that is that it is unknowable. I'd accept that, except for the fact that none of the near-field observations are consistent with any sort of galactic through-put.