Electric Sun: A Quantitative Calculation

[jacmac]

I wish to suggest two debates at the same time.
The topics would be the same as in : Is model A correct ? Is model B correct.
This could work because the debate(s) are to be in writing, with new posts under clear separate headings.
This way each side would be required to do both offensive and defensive work.
Both models should be under the same scrutiny.

Jack

[FS3]

Hello N,


nice thread you've brought up here - and I have been watching it for quite some while. Interestingly, noone here seems to be bothered by your "initial conditions". As I have studied Juergens' works quite well, been quite familiar with Scott's work and moreover I have a deg in electrical engeneering I'll find it only fair if I'll take up some of your pebbles and join the thread by discussing your assumptions point for point. ...

...I've done some quantitative calculations based on this model,...

The Sun emits electromagnetic radiation, pretty much isotropically, and at a very stable, unvarying rate; the total energy of this radiation is 3.85 x 10^26 J/sec.

As the Solar Constant is to be regarded as 0.137 W/cm3 the 3.85 up to 4 x 1026 W seems fine with me. Acknowledged!

In the Electric Sun hypothesis, this energy comes from an electric current, comprised of incoming ("entering") electrons and outgoing ("leaving") positive ions; let's look at the electrons.

The maximum average energy that an electron in this (Birkeland) current can deliver to the Sun - to be converted somehow into light - is ~1 MeV, which is 1.6 x 10^-13 J (MeV is a unit of energy).

Why?

Because if it were much greater than this, a significant fraction of such electrons would generate electron-positron pairs (through collisions with matter in the photosphere), which would in turn result in emission of 511 keV gamma rays (electron-positron 'annihilation radiation'); the Sun does not emit much of such radiation, certainly far less than that which would be produced by huge numbers of electrons with >1.02 MeV of kinetic energy (see below for details).

Herein I may state politely that I don't agree with you! - Most of the "incoming" current-bearers - mainly electrons - don't "collide" only with the photosphere, as they experience first interaction with higher regions of the Sun - though creating the p-n-p effect by balancing in/outflow over the "puffer" of the Chromosphere and -- to a smaller degree -- with the Corona.

Simply said -they are slowed down above the photosphere.

A hint for all this gives us the "hot" torus around our Sun, that can befound as well as at the big gas planets -- Jupiter and Saturn -- in our solar system. They seem to function as some kind of energy-"puffer".



Moreover we can watch the characteristics of the Bremsstrahlung due to the amount of high frequency spectra above the photosphere rather than directly on it.

Keeping this important point in our mind, your following calculation -- built upon your previous assumption -- doesn't need to be correct:

To produce 3.85 x 10^26 J of energy, the current needs to deliver ~1.6 x 10^39 electrons (of average kinetic energy 1 MeV) to the Sun, every second.

Where do the electrons come from, the ones which end up powering the Sun?

As the hypothetical electric discharge must then have a power input of 4 x 1026 Juergens simply estimated an 1010 V cathode drop to be neccesary and calculated over the area of the heliosphere (only till Pluto! 6 x 1012 m, with an external area of -- very conservative -- 4 x 1026 m2) and the surface(?) of our sun some current of 4 x 1016 Amps. Furtheron he took the empirical data of electrons measured near-Earth at 10 x 106/m3 -- mostly thermicals and assumed that if only 1 out of 3000 of those electrons would be relativistic - the energy would be enough for fueling our sun.

You can reread all of Juergen's calculations here.

So those electrons might all be collected over the area of the heliopause indeed...

The Electric Sun hypothesis is rather vague on that, but this suggests that it is in the vicinity of the heliopause: "The planets and their moons each carry an electric charge as they travel through this plasma.The plasma sea in which the solar system floats extends out to what is called the heliopause - where there is probably a double layer that separates our Sun's plasma from the lower voltage plasma that fills our arm of the Milky Way galaxy."

Scott correctly points out that in situ measurements of the properties of the heliopause are few indeed; however, from data returned from Voyager, the following seem reasonable (and are consistent with various, indirect, estimates):

* electron density: 0.001 per cubic cm

* distance from the Sun: 80 au (astronomical units)

* bulk speed: 100 km/s (the Voyager data says away from the Sun, but let's assume it's towards the Sun)

* motion of heliosphere relative to the local interstellar medium (LISM): 20 km/s (this comes from other sources, not Voyager).

If all the incoming electrons, crossing the heliopause/heliosheath/termination shock (or exiting the double layer there) end up entering the Sun, how many electrons would that be?

Approximately 1.8 x 10^35, per second. Which is some four orders of magnitude (a factor of ~10,000) too few. But maybe that's OK; maybe the numbers could be tweaked somehow, some fudge factors added, to bring this estimate closer to ~1.6 x 10^39.

Some tweaks won't work though; for example assuming the average kinetic energy of the electrons is significantly less than ~1 MeV would mean more electrons would be needed, making the gap between demand and supply even greater; including the energy lost due to the kinetic energy of the departing positive ions would likewise make the gap bigger, not smaller.

As I've stated your assumption about the arbitrary "speed-limit" of our electrons isn't necessarily valid!

An interlude: 511 keV gamma rays, and current

If each incoming electron in the current that powers the Electric Sun produced just one outgoing 511 keV gamma ray, then the number we'd see, at 1 au from the Sun (out in space of course!) would be ~6 x 10^11 per square centimetre per second. The space probes (e.g. RHESSI) which have observed (and are continuing to observe) gamma-rays, of this energy, have detected peak counts of ~100-1,000 (per square centimetre per second), during really big flares (the 'quiet Sun' values are essentially zero). Clearly, there can't be very many >1.02 MeV electrons in the incoming current!

The current flowing to the Sun is at least 2 x 10^20 A (from the electrons alone, assuming ~1 MeV electrons), which works out to ~42 Amps per square metre, on average.

As I haven't seen any 511 keV spikes as well I think we can skip this -- for more, see above.

An exploding Sun?

1.6 x 10^39 electrons is a lot of electrons. In the Electric Sun hypothesis, all those entering the Sun stay there. This produces an interesting result: if this number of electrons were to be distributed evenly throughout the top metre of the photosphere, that layer of the Sun would explode. Violently.

Why?

This number of electrons, distributed that way, would mean each was <~0.2 microns from its nearest neighbour. Now we all know that the electromagnetic force is many, many orders of magnitude (OOM) greater (stronger) than gravity - for a pair of electrons it's ~39 OOM - so the mutual repulsion of the electrons, that close to each other, would overwhelm the gravitational pull on them of all the mass in the Sun ... by >13 OOM.

Boom!

As I haven't seen any "exploding Sun" as well I think we can skip this -- for more, see above.

Looks like the Electric Sun hypothesis is between a rock (energy output of the Sun) and a hard place (unobserved side effects of that energy being supplied by an electric current - electrons entering the Sun).

But perhaps my numbers, or calculations (or both), are wrong; can you, dear reader, find any significant errors of either kind?

Next: sources, and more details of the calculations (if anyone would like to see them; they involve little more than arithmetic).

There are more interesting thoughts that I'd like to discuss with you (especially the 10 x 1010 V barrier -- that seems to be a real kind of natural limit, when we deal with electrons and protons), but due to my limited time now -- it is about 2 am here -- let's continue later...

Kind regards.

FS3

[Lloyd]

* Looks like FS3 wins the debate. Congratulations!
* Jack, your suggestion for a double debate sounds good.
* Here's something I found via http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/v ... f=6&t=4329 that looks potentially useful for the Electric Sun debate. It's an article that says some interesting things about how double layers explode at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_reconnection.
Alfvén went on to describe the double layer energy transfer mechanism thusly[9]:

A simple mechanism of explosion is the following. The double layer can be considered as a double diode, limited by a slab of plasma on the cathode side and another slab on the anode side. Electrons starting from the cathode get accelerated in the diode and impinge upon the anode slab with a considerable momentum which they transfer to the plasma. Similarly, accelerated ions transfer momentum to the cathode slab. The result is that the anode and cathode plasma columns are pushed away from each other. When the distance between the electrodes in the diodes becomes larger the drop in voltage increases. This run-away phenomenon leads to an explosion…

[David Talbott]

Just a reminder to everyone of Nereid’s previous note concerning her absence through March and into early April.

Until I hear otherwise, I’m going to assume that a reasonable start date for the debate will be April 15. It’s a bit arbitrary on my part, and we can certainly be flexible, but that should give us time to nail down remaining details as to ground rules.

The debate will focus on the electric sun hypothesis and its claimed advantages over the standard model of the Sun. The primary references will be The Electric Universe (Thornhill and Talbott) chapter on the electric sun and The Electric Sky (Scott), though numerous other citations should be expected.

If we really need a moderator, that will be okay with me, so long as a fair and open-minded individual is available. Most folks advising us do not believe that moderation is necessary, and I tend to agree, so long as the rules are clear. Certainly BAUT’s Tusenfem would not be an appropriate “moderator,” since that would require me to debate two people.

[FS3]

Additionally when you assume the Sun as a black box -- btw. excellent idea -- you have to take into consideration...

...Think of it as a black box; coming out of the black box is energy in the form electromagnetic radiation, at a rate of 3.85 x 10^26 J/sec (and protons, but I'm ignoring them, for now); going into the black box is electrons (and nothing but electrons).

Conservation of energy means that the energy the electrons give (transfer, add, ...) to the black box must be the same as that coming out of it (the Electric Sun hypothesis does not include the Sun being self-powered, or having a store of energy it can draw down); the very steady output of the energy implies that the inputs and outputs balance (to within a few tenths of a percent) over timescales as short as seconds and as long as centuries...

...that the entity which we call "Sun" is made up by more than just that glowing ball we do see. I think it would be legitimate to include the Sun's atmosphere into that black box as well. So inside our black box would be ...

- the glowing ball
- the cromosphere
- the corona

Additionally the idea of a double diode with pilllows of kinda "condensed" plasma above the anode and kathode would do fine to develop the model a bit deeper from the math. point. These "pillows" will help you to understand the point you've made about the energy transfer, if you protrude a bit deeper into the matter of the physics behind a normal discharge tube.

Anyhow, that should be sufficient to give you some more additional space of thinking...

happyness
FS3

[kiwi]

After all, it doesn't matter how many quantified facts there are, that form a reasonable argument for this hypothesis (or model), it takes but a single one to falsify it, doesn't it? A solitary 'contrary fact'.

Sorta like the way COBE: A Radiological Analysis falsifies the CMB, Eh, Nereid?

.

Goldminer .... caught up with my mates old man last weekend ..... got about 2 minutes in his ear , ... he is flat out doubling his staff and production areas as he has 50 giant magnets for the 3D television industry to be delivered by next year ... (they are about 10 ft long and weigh around 80 tonnes each, they make the small devices that go into the TV's via ion-beam tech) ..... anyhoo, in a nut-shell he agrees with Robilliards summation on the critical nature of data interpretation and the absolute need to follow the very strict guidelines layed out for achieving this .... one for the boys you might say

here is an old file that gives an overview on Bill's operation , outdated now but validation as to the worth of his opinion (imo) ... not bad for an up-side downer http://ptep-online.com/index_files/2009/PP-19-03.PDF

[kiwi]

whoops .. wrong link , this is it http://www.victoria.ac.nz/canz/research ... temsv6.pdf

[psychegram]

Nereid's calculation seems to be treating the electrons like little ping-pong balls, considering only the kinetic energy available in them. Forgive me if I'm wrong but, if we're going to analyze the problem in terms of an electric star, shouldn't we be thinking in terms of ... electricity?

So to start with, the relevant equation would seem to be

I = V/R (1)

Or, perhaps more usefully (since we can't easily constrain any of those three variables)

P = I^2*R (2)

Where at least we know P, which is simply the solar constant (this is for a DC power supply).

Now, I ran this problem by my thesis supervisor several months ago, and he suggested that the first thing I would want to do would be to calculate the resistance of the Sun, R, and then solve (2) for the current, I. This is actually not as straightforward as it sounds, as it's not like the Sun is a giant mass of copper wire with a well-defined resistivity. However, there are equations available for determining the resistivity of a plasma at various densities ... the problem is that, as the resulting resistance is a function of the dimensions of the circuit element:

R = rho*A/L (3)

where rho is the resistivity, A is the cross-sectional area and L is the length, one unavoidably has to make certain ad hoc assumptions about the characteristic length and diameter of the sub-circuits within the Sun. Note that it's still necessary to calculate the resistivity of the plasma ... I think there's something called the Spitzer expression, which can do this as a function of temperature

1/sigma = 10^3*T^-1.5 (4)

where 1/sigma is the resistivity

Alternatively, it can be calculated using

eta = mu_0*L/S*V_A (5)

where mu_0 is the permittivity of free space, L is the characteristic length scale, S is (... I forget), and V_A is the Alfven speed,

V_A = B/sqrt(mu_0*rho) (6)

where B is the magnetic field and rho, in this case, is the plasma density. Note that the photospheric magnetic field is often quoted as <4 G, however, this is the value measured with the Zeeman effect; the (much more difficult to measure) Hanle effect, which is sensitive to fields with a more tangled structure, indicates that the actual value may be as much as 100 times higher.

I don't have the calculations handy at the moment, but I can say that by playing around with the dimensions I was able to achieve relatively good agreement between the current necessary to feed the Sun, and the available current based upon the electron density at the heliopause. Basically, I assumed the electrons were entering through the poles (rather than isotropically over the surface), and were then confined to follow a more or less spiraling pattern through the photosphere before eventually exiting around the equator. For the characteristic diameter of a circuit element within the Sun, take something like the diameter of a 'magnetic flux tube'; for the characteristic length, take something on the order of the diameter of the Sun (the actual length in this model will be greater than this, but this is a very rough back of the envelope calculation so order of magnitude agreement is all we're looking for.)

Once a value for the resistance is found, solving for I is straightforward. Since the current has to be the same everywhere in the circuit, if we take the current and express it as a current density at the heliopause (where we have to make some assumptions as to where, precisely, it is located), we should achieve agreement between this value, the particle density at the heliopause (roughly 0.1 cm^-3), and the characteristic particle velocity in this area.

Now, lots of caveats here: I'm not an expert in this field, so this line of reasoning could well be prey to misunderstandings of which I'm not currently aware. There's also a LOT of ad hoc assumptions being made. If there's anyone on the forum who can poke a hole in this, tighten things up, or offer any constructive criticism, have at 'er. I'm all ears.

One further point: obviously, everyone here is aware of the heliospheric current sheet, which does flow away from the Sun. It carries a total current of 3x10^9 A. One would expect the polar currents (as yet undetected, although Ulysses, I believe, may have come across something) to be equal to this. The assumption we want to make of course is that current flows out equatorially and in through the poles ... this being what is in fact observed for charged spheres embedded in a low-density plasma. But, I believe one may still expect that the full surface area of the heliopause is used to collect electrons from the local interstellar medium, with the electrons then being directed towards the poles.

[botoxic]

So to start with, the relevant equation would seem to be
I = V/R (1)
Or, perhaps more usefully (since we can't easily constrain any of those three variables)
P = I^2*R (2)
Where at least we know P, which is simply the solar constant (this is for a DC power supply).

It may be more complicated than that. Electrical energy is not carried by electrons, but I don't know whether this still allows us to calculate the energy regardless of how it gets there! See:

• ELECTRIC ENERGY IS CARRIED BY INDIVIDUAL ELECTRONS? Wrong at Bill Beaty's excellent site on Electricity.
• "Understanding Electricity and Circuits: What the Text Books Don’t Tell You" (PDF) by Ian M. Sefton
• "Electric Discharge as the Source of Solar Radiant Energy (Concluded)" by Ralph E. Juergens, suggesting that electrons may reach relativistic velocities.

[jjohnson]

I am greatly enjoying you guys' taking serious stabs at modeling the Sun electrically. The first steps are crucial to what follows, clearly, and making mistakes here and there is only normal; those usually sort themselves out over time, especially if we can get competent and unbiased peer review to point out flaws in either the reasoning, the methodology or the math.

In thinking about something as simple as a DC circuit (there's no indication that the electric currents in space are AC so far as I know, unless their periods are measured in megayears) with an incandescent light bulb in it, there are two things that are clear and perhaps a few analogies to the Sun that are less clear. FS3 and botoxic expressed these pretty clearly in the standard, well-understood terms of circuitry.

1. Current in has to equal current out throughout a closed circuit.

2. There is always resistance in a circuit at some point or you are dealing with a zero or an infinite value. The first is useless (no current flow) and the second is not possible in physics and engineering, even though mathematicians have a lot of sport with it.

3. And finally, although relativistic electrons can carry a lot of energy and provide a lot of power to do something, most circuits do not require relativistic electrons, and the rate at which power is transferred through or delivered in a circuit is not a function of the local speed of its electron. That's probably why they call the motion of the charged particles in a circuit along the axis of the conductors the "drift" current or drift velocity. It ain't c.

The latter point is where I think that perhaps Juergens may have gotten a part of his hypothesis wrong, basing my remark on the lack (or low count) of relativistic, inbound electrons observed so far in the vicinity of the Sun. [reference needed]. That we have so far only sent a single satellite to measure things in the vicinity of the solar poles speaks to the difficulty of drawing too many conclusions, too early in the research, particularly if the model needs evidence for a realistically adequate current flow via the poles.

[An aside question — does the Sun have auroras (in whichever mode, dark, light) around its poles, analogous to planetary auroras, with filaments of positive and negative flows? Does it thereby exhibit "jets" - fast flows in and out, depending on charge polarity? As you examine the Sun's equatorial current sheet, does its current density decrease as you move away from the sun, or does the sheet of charged particles collapse into filamentary streamers?]

It is definitely going to be interesting to see how the recent IBEX article (being discussed on another thread in this forum) plays out and is interpreted by those scientists studying its results from imaging energetic neutral particles.

So keep up the good work here and see if we can refine this with more numeric examples. Resistances of plasma is indeed a difficult area, and the equations for it do have several variables to consider, part of which makes plasma simulation so difficult. A plasma current can be looked at or "solved" in several ways. Bulk flows and waves using MHD equations are the typical form, but most of us have read by now of the warning Hannes Alfvén gave to physicists about the inapplicability of his invention (MHD) to all but a very limited case in plasma phenomena, and pointed out that looking at the motions and interactions of individual particles was necessary (and extremely difficult) to tease out the "real" (observed) types of behavior that a plasma can undergo.

I know I do not understand how to program particle-in-cell phenomena; I hope we will have such talent here before too long. The scale of doing that modeling on just a little plasma ball is beyond my personal imagining, much less for the Sun. That's likely a far way off even for the best of computers, without being able to skillfully select the necessary shortcuts and choosing the right factors that are not particularly significant. The danger of the latter is that plasma morphs constantly in a self-feedback set of loops, and what was small and insignificant can suddenly grow very fast and exhibit an unexpected shift in behavior. The unstable collapse of electric conditions around a star which creates a gamma ray burst, or a pulsar, or a nova, may be an example of that.

Press on!

Jim

[jjohnson]

botoxic, the reference to Ian Sefton's Understanding Circuits is excellent - must-read, just like Bill Beatty's site. @Nereid: when you get back on, please read. Good basics.

Thanks!

Jim

[Lloyd]

* Apparently, the total energy of any star can be measured.
- The power of a star is its luminosity, L, which is the energy it emits per second, in the form of photons of all wavelengths.
- The distance to the star is the radius of a sphere of its total stellar energy output. The surface area of the sphere is 4πr^2.
- Brightness, B, is the amount of energy per square meter arriving from the star to an observer. B = L/4πr^2.
- The Sun apparently has luminosity of 3.9 E26 watts. Its brightness on the Earth, 1 AU away, is
B = 3.9 E26/(4π(1.5 Ε11)^2) = 1380 w/m^2.

* If all this energy came from fusion in the Sun's core, wouldn't the thousands of miles thick mass of matter above the core absorb all that energy, especially since that mass is only 5800°K?

[jjohnson]

Wouldn't the temperature of the mass of plasma outside the fusing core be heated by now to a temperature much higher than the 5800K observed through blackbody spectrum matching, given that the temperature necessary to produce the fusion is in the millions kelvin, and that heat has to go somewhere [else]...

This is but one of the many "anomalies" that the Standard Model finds hard to come up with a plausible answer for. See Don Scott's book (Electric Sky) and page 25 in the E-Sun pdf for listings and discussions of these many difficulties with that model.

Another problem with the Brightness/Luminosity calculations is that only a very tiny fraction of the stars around us have had their distances calculated reasonably accurately through geometric parallax and the Hipparcos satellite (out to roughly 350 light years) to use in the distance falloff calculation through the intervening space.

Other factors, such as intervening dust clouds and molecular gases can change the spectral shape and reduce the observed/measured brightness of a given star (this process is called "extinction"), and only estimates of this diminution factor can be made. There are precise formulas involving distance and radius and extinction, and the maximum output frequency versus blackbody temperature, and total energy emitted if you know the radiating surface area, and so on. But they rely on the accuracy of the distance measurements, and the certainty of the extinction prediction, and those are, in nearly all cases, not well known at all. There is also some doubt as to whether a star is actually an ideal blackbody radiator, which throws further sabots into the works.

Jim

[psychegram]

Wouldn't the temperature of the mass of plasma outside the fusing core be heated by now to a temperature much higher than the 5800K observed through blackbody spectrum matching, given that the temperature necessary to produce the fusion is in the millions kelvin, and that heat has to go somewhere [else]...

This is but one of the many "anomalies" that the Standard Model finds hard to come up with a plausible answer for. See Don Scott's book (Electric Sky) and page 25 in the E-Sun pdf for listings and discussions of these many difficulties with that model.

Another problem with the Brightness/Luminosity calculations is that only a very tiny fraction of the stars around us have had their distances calculated reasonably accurately through geometric parallax and the Hipparcos satellite (out to roughly 350 light years) to use in the distance falloff calculation through the intervening space.

Other factors, such as intervening dust clouds and molecular gases can change the spectral shape and reduce the observed/measured brightness of a given star (this process is called "extinction"), and only estimates of this diminution factor can be made. There are precise formulas involving distance and radius and extinction, and the maximum output frequency versus blackbody temperature, and total energy emitted if you know the radiating surface area, and so on. But they rely on the accuracy of the distance measurements, and the certainty of the extinction prediction, and those are, in nearly all cases, not well known at all. There is also some doubt as to whether a star is actually an ideal blackbody radiator, which throws further sabots into the works.

Jim

Hence the large error bars we astronomers have gotten used to working with

And stars are certainly not ideal blackbodies, although a lot of the anomalies are resolved simply by taking into account the behaviour of atomic lines at various temperatures, 'line blanketing' (which is when there are so many lines, crowded very close together, that the continuum is obscured), and other effects. Which is not to say that there are not other anomalies, which as yet we cannot model.

So far as the cores, the idea is that the energy gets transported upwards by some mixture of radiation (ie photons) and convection (bulk matter circulation), depending on local conditions. However even as an undergrad I found it very odd that sunspots - which provide our only direct window into the solar interior - are cooler than the rest of the photosphere, while the corona is at millions of degrees. Seemed bass-ackwards to me and I've yet to hear a satisfactory explanation for this that passed my *smacks head* "Yes, of course, how didn't I see it before!" test.

Aside from the Electric Sun hypothesis, of course

[Lloyd]

* Jim, it's good to have all your caveats listed after my post re calculating stellar energy. I didn't want to complicate the basic formula by discussing such caveats right away. But in the next post [yours] was convenient.

* Psychegram, spectral line blanketing is interesting. I hadn't heard of that. How large a range of frequencies or wavelengths are typically blanketed in that way? And what kinds of sources produce such line blanketing? Stars, quasars, galaxies, GRBs, pulsars, supernovae, comets, electric discharges, UFOs?
* Are you a member of the NPA, which is discussed at http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... f=3&t=4284? They seem to have great speakers and articles.