TPOD: Detecting Double Layers

[mharratsc]

Detecting Double Layers

This article really, really impresses me- it's written like an engineering bulletin you would expect to see posted on the wall of some electronics company as an FYI to their technical staff!

Speaking of which- I wonder if any of the 'higher-ups' might be friends with the folks who maintain the IEEE website? After all, since Plasma Cosmology is fully recognized by that organization, I wonder if they couldn't get a permanent TPOD link on the IEEE.org/aerospace/astrophysics page under the 'Content from our partners' column or something? Has anyone ever looked into that, I wonder?

In any event- this was an excellently presented article, Stephen! I really liked how you did this one.

[scotts]

I like that they see another example of matter moving faster than the speed of light but write it off...

[Nereid]

It's not clear, to me anyway, which of the papers (or preprints) which have Muxlow as an author form the (ultimate) basis for the New Scientist article that the TPOD cites (if anyone does know, for sure, please say so!)

The closest seems to be: "Discovery of an unusual new radio source in the star-forming galaxy M82: Faint supernova, supermassive blackhole, or an extra-galactic microquasar?" by Muxlow et al., published in May this year in MNRAS. While this is behind a paywall, you can read the preprint for free, from arXiv.

The abstract is:

A faint new radio source has been detected in the nuclear region of the starburst galaxy M82 using Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network radio observations designed to monitor the flux density evolution of the recent bright supernova SN 2008iz. This new source was initially identified in observations made between 2009 May 1 and 5 but had not been present in observations made 1 week earlier, or in any previous observations of M82. In this Letter, we report the discovery of this new source and monitoring of its evolution over its first 9 months of existence. The true nature of this new source remains unclear, and we discuss whether this source is an unusual and faint supernova, a supermassive black hole associated with the nucleus of M82 or intriguingly the first detection of radio emission from an extragalactic microquasar.