New Twist on Birkeland Currents

[Solar]

They're also called "twisted polar jets" or "polar coronal jets".

Can you say Birkeland current. Everywhere I looked the helical base of the polar coronal jets was attributed to the below model:

"The observations confirm a model previously outlined by study coauthor Spiro Antiochos of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and his collaborators. In that model they proposed that the energy stored and then suddenly released in the twisted magnetic fields propel the jet of gas upward, imparting the helical pattern. When the fields totally unravel, some of the gas may fall back toward the sun, but other parcels, revved up to velocities greater than 300 kilometers per second, escape the corona and head into space." - Science News

Somewhat decent video of the base of the Birkeland current is here and shows how far off into space from the surface of the sun the plasma is accelerated. But an even better one is available at the Stereo Mission site:

Twisting Solar Jets in Stereo

Direct link: Solar Jets movie (2.20mb)

Relavant paper: STEREO/SECCHI Stereoscopic Observations Constraining the Initiation of Polar Coronal Jets

Shameless image captures:




Universe without electricity; static.
Universe with electricity... priceless.

OY!!!

[junglelord]

"Because the electrical current-carrying filaments are parallel, they attract via the Biot-Savart force law, in pairs but sometimes three. The person who first recognized this was Birkeland. It really peeves me to see Birkeland, Tesla, others excluded from history and the present.

I'm trying to recall, what's the explanation for the long-range attraction and for the short-range repulsion? IE, why isn't it attraction all the way or repulsion all the way?

That would be the Biot-Savart force.

"Because the electrical current-carrying filaments are parallel, they attract via the Biot-Savart force law, in pairs but sometimes three. This reduces the 56 filaments over time to 28 filaments; hence the 56 and 28 fold symmetry patterns. In actuality, during the pairing, any number of filaments less than 56 may be recorded as pairing is not synchronized to occur uniformly. However, there are 'temporarily stable' (longer state durations) at 42, 35, 28, 14, 7, and 4 filaments. Each pair formation is a vortex that becomes increasingly complex." - Holoscience

The signature of electromagnetic forces at work is "doubleness". Wherever there are multiple strands of electric currents, they prefer to interact in pairs. The reason for this derives from Ampére's Law or the Biot-Savart force law which states that currents in the same direction attract while currents in the opposite direction repel. They do so inversely as the distance betweeen them. This results in a far larger ranging force of interaction than, say, the gravitational forces between two masses. The latter give a force that is always attractive and which varies inversely as the square of the distance between them.- Anatomy of a Galaxy in Evolution

The simplest "model" put forth by Peratt deduced that Biot-Savart long-range attraction short-range repulsion is how parallel Birkeland currents 'wrap' around each other during galaxy formation. The result is the spiral pattern. Whether the galaxy is barred or spiral depends on the homogeneity of the plasma with which the Birkeland currents interact. Peratt's particle-in-cell experiment is the dynamic that shows the Biot-Savart interaction. The totality of the Hubble Tuning Fork diagram of galaxy evolution is demonstrating this observationally as well. From E0 to S0 in particular, the elongation of the elliptical galaxy is due to Biot-Savart Law.

"Evolution of the Plasma Universe". Peratt's work in this area is one of the things that constantly has me wondering why current astronomy and astrophysics is still on the aberrant path it follows.

Peratt's Papers

[junglelord]

Twisting Solar Jets in STEREO
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/ite ... id=1&id=66

Large image here.
http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/img/stereoi ... arjets.jpg

[substance]

Pretty crazy explanation about "built up energy" in the plasma... Anyway, how come this birkeland current is so short? Wasn`t it supposed to go all the way to the earth and the other planets? Or is it in glow mode only in its beginning?

[Solar]

... how come this birkeland current is so short? Wasn`t it supposed to go all the way to the earth and the other planets? Or is it in glow mode only in its beginning?

Depends on the filters used in photographing it for one thing. That would affect what one sees. It's anyone guess where the other end of that thunderbolt was connected. It went from "dark current" to "normal glow mode" to "arc mode" and Current Density plays a major factor there.

It reminds me of Electric Arc image from this site: Electric arc



Cropped and rotated here:



For all anyone knows this the other end of this solar Birkeland current could have been connected all the way to the "virtual cathode" of the Sun's heliosheath:

Of course, the Sun does not have an identifiable cathode in space like the metal cathode in the glow discharge tube. Instead, the plasma in space forms a bubble, known as a “virtual cathode.” Effectively it is the heliopause. In plasma terms, the heliopause is not a result of mechanical shock but is a Langmuir plasma sheath that forms between two plasmas of different charge densities and energies. In this case it forms the boundary between the Sun’s plasma and that of the galaxy. Such “bubbles” are seen at all scales, from the comas of comets to the ‘magnetospheres’ of planets and stars. - Holoscience

In fact, it could be one of several such columnated or cylindrical arcs along the circumference of the Sun's version of Birkeland current sheets:



The above graphic via Holoscience also. It's from a point of view looking up through the earth's magnetosphere' along the polar cusp. The flared yellow end opens to the solar wind. Guess what else has this type of "cusp"-like central region for it's magnetosphere?. The Sun's heliosphere; more properly Langmuir sheath. It slowly undulates back and forth a little, over time, as the Sun travels through the Interstellar Medium - just like Earth's does in relation to the solar wind. Electro-plasma dynamics are remarkably scalable that way. I think I have a few graphical representations of the heliospheric version somewhere on ye 'ol hard drive...

Nonetheless do partake of that article by Don Scott regarding current density etc.

[seasmith]

Twisted radio beam...congestion
Physicist Thomas Leyser at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Uppsala, Sweden, thinks he has a novel solution. Along with an international team of physicists, he has demonstrated that it is possible to put a spin on radio beams during their transmission to produce a twisted beam.

Leyser says that "the information encoded in the twist is independent of the amplitude and frequency of the radio waves" -

Leyser and his co-workers created the first twisted radio beams at the HAARP facility of 48 radio antennas in Alaska.."The twisted beams excited plasma turbulence in the ionosphere that was consistent with the ring-shaped beams and different from that excited by regular beams," Leyser says.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1 ... nline-news

Solar,

There's a symmetry of scale here somewhere, imho ...!

~s~

[Solar]

Solar,

There's a symmetry of scale here somewhere, imho ...!

~s~

Aye. *If* its actually twisting. It doesn't really sound like natural helical "twisting" though. Heard about this on the news and wondered how it was accomplished.

The signal is twisted by firing antennas in sequence to describe a circle, instead of having all of them transmit the same signal at once. "What we did was to feed all the antennas in the array with slightly different currents," says Leyser.

Each antenna received an alternating current slightly delayed from the adjacent antenna in the circle. The time delay ripples around the array so that the beam emerges to describe a helical wave front.

Just speculating; but

It actually sounds more like the action of 'synchronous circularly pulsed variable AC radio wave propagation'. They time delay the AC between antennas formed in a circular array. Because of the time delay in firing the antennas in a stepped sequence, instead of all together at once, and applying slightly different current to each antenna, the 'pulses' come out staggered in both time and current creating a 'leading edge' like the steps of a spiral staircase. It doesn't appear that radio wave itself is actually spinning because they would've taken advantage of the natural helicity instead of creating this technique. Which sounds like circularly polarized radio waves.

It sounds like the 'stepped (not helical) wave-front' would more-so have the action of a 'stepped-pulse interaction' on that with which it comes into contact with and could probably cause something to 'spin'. Like with the dust motes in the linked article "Twisting the light away". So they fired it into the ionosphere producing "turbulence" and may want to use the idea to 'bounce'/reflect signals for cell phones.

[seasmith]

Each antenna received an alternating current slightly delayed from the adjacent antenna in the circle. The time delay ripples around the array so that the beam emerges to describe a helical wave front...
."
The twisted beams excited plasma turbulence in the ionosphere that was consistent with the ring-shaped beams and different from that excited by regular beams,"


Solar wrote:

" Just speculating; but

It actually sounds more like the action of 'synchronous circularly pulsed variable AC radio wave propagation'. ...
It doesn't really sound like natural helical "twisting" though.

The distinction may be moot.
"Pulse" any circular array, in an orthogonal plane, and it will yield a "helical; front.

Do we actually know What creates, not maintains, a Birkeland current ?

[Solar]

The distinction may be moot.
"Pulse" any circular array, in an orthogonal plane, and it will yield a "helical; front.

Thank you.

Do we actually know What creates, not maintains, a Birkeland current ?

Good question. I seem to recall that this was discussed in a thread with JL somewhere a while back during version 1.0 of the forum. If I remember correctly conjecturing put forth the notion that perhaps Birkeland currents were helical 'structures' wherein longitudinal forces were dominant. It was an interesting conversation, not that it was necessarily correct, have to find that thread if it's been recovered....

[Solar]

Found it Sea. The information is scattered out a bit amongst a few old threads but I think this is the primary thread. We can use the resource(s) there to point to the main gist of the idea.

Plnbz started a thread to discuss “Meyl's Modifications to Maxwell's Equations”. His first post contains a link to a paper by Konstantin Meyl entitled “Faraday or Maxwell”. Meyl discusses vortices, the anti-vortex, vortex tubes, potential vortex etc. then scales the vortex relationship from tornado to lightning under the section “Vortices in the microcosm and macrocosm”:

There are some very interesting points made that appear to have significance to the nature of Birkeland currents and/or the nature of electric currents in general. English is not Prof. Meyls native tongue so there are a few rough spots in there.

Vortices in the microcosm and macrocosm

If we take as an example the lightning and ask how the lightning channel is formed: Which mechanism is behind it, if the electrically insulating air for a short time is becoming a conductor? From the viewpoint of vortex physics the answer is obvious: The potential vortex, which in the air is dominating, contracts very strong and doing so squeezes all air charge carriers and air ions, which are responsible for the conductivity, together at a very small space to form a current channel.

The contracting potential vortex thus exerts a pressure and with that forms the vortex tube. Besides the cylindrical structure another structure can be expected. It is the sphere, which is the only form, which can withstand a powerful pressure if that acts equally from all directions of space. Only think of ball lightning. Actually the spherical structure is mostly found in microcosm till macrocosm. Let’s consider some examples and thereby search for the expanding and contracting forces …
(…)
The mathematical derivations of the Maxwell field and the wave equation disclose, of what the Maxwell approximation consists. The anti-vortex dual to the expanding eddy current with its skin effect is neglected. This contracting anti-vortex is called potential vortex. It is capable of forming structures and propagates as a scalar wave in longitudinal manner in badly conducting media like air or vacuum.

The 'contraction', the 'squeezing together' of all the 'charge carries responsible for conductivity' in order to form the “current channel” or “vortex tube”. This, to me, sounds like an electric current. You have a situation wherein “charge carries” are evacuated from the surrounding area and 'constricted' to a “central channel”.

Also, seeming very important in relation to the Z-pinch mechanism, notice that “Besides the cylindrical structure {current channel/vortex tube) another structure can be expected. It is the sphere, which is the only form, which can withstand a powerful pressure if that acts equally from all directions of space.”

Meyl asserts that one is to think of “ball lightning”, the spherical structure that may may be produced and; the only form which can withstand the powerful pressure that acts equally from all directions of space. Harold Aspden calls it the “Thunderball”. We know that the EU, along with the IEEE, has an interest in this phenomena. It seems applicable/related/has implications to the Z-Pinch dynamic that produces stars, our Sun for example.

The last quoted paragraph sums the relationship between the vortex, the accompanying constrictive anti-vortex, the squeezing of charge carriers into a central current channel producing “structures” (the current channel, or vortex tube itself and/or a sphere of “ball lightning”) which propagates as a scalar wave in longitudinal manner”.

Birkeland currents are 'cosmic lightning', The Thunderbolt. Taking into consideration the dynamic Meyl puts forth in the paper, especially aspects as quoted above, some interesting correspondences seem to exist between Meyl's description of what is occurring and what may be the nature of Birkeland currents, celestial lightning, cosmic electric currents, electric currents in general. There seems to be a very powerful relationship there.

An interesting side note: the "Proceedings of the 1992 International Tesla Symposium" from 21st Century Books had speaker James Hardesty on "The Experiments of Kristian Birkeland. If it isn't in some way related to scalar/longitudinal propagation 21st Century isn't interested.

Nonetheless, some interesting to consider. According to Meyl much, if not all of it, is "hidden" in Maxwell's equations.

[seasmith]

“Birkeland currents are 'cosmic lightning', The Thunderbolt.”

Solar,

Yes, tho i’ve had the (possibly mistaken) perception that the “Bikeland” modifier implies dual or multiple, mutually-rotating ‘current tubes’.

I agree with the Meyl/Tesla/Faraday/Demokrtis dual-vortex model of these charge carriers.
On re-reading the two Meyl papers cited by StefanR, on page 1 of your

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... &sk=t&sd=a,

i see that he does fairly equate the possible transmission of both Signal (radio “carrier waves”) and Charge, as longitudinal or scalar ‘waves’.

He also makes some points (imo)pertinent to Birlelands; about eddy currents and conductivity (if one understands “squeezing” as an electro-mechanical process); but at least in those two papers, he doesn’t so much address the
Generation of these charge carriers, but rather their Form~ation.
Obviously, all the equations are based on an ‘electric potential’ differential, which is probably why he calls the reciprocaling vortex a “potential vortex” and a “frequency converter” (important concept).
As to my allusion above to a “symmetry of scale”, Meyl’s discussion of the transformation from electromagnetic to scalar, via the principles of “resonant coupling” and near-field / far-field dynamics, is helpful.

~s~

[Solar]

Yes, tho i’ve had the (possibly mistaken) perception that the “Bikeland” modifier implies dual or multiple, mutually-rotating ‘current tubes’.

I agree that Meyl's work is helpful.

To my knowledge calling them Birkeland currents is simply following the naming convention as relates the originator of a theory etc; not a 'modifier' of sorts. As far as I know there aren't any implications to specific aspects of the electric currents (aka "Field Aligned") to which his name refers whether terrestrial or cosmic.

As to their "creation" I think Mel Achelson has some interesting points with regard to “charge separation” and E-field:

An electric star wouldn't begin with the cloud. It would begin with charge separation. Everything we see in the universe, with the possible exception of a few specks of planets and reflection nebulas, is ionized to some degree. It's a PLASMA, the fourth and dominant state of matter in the universe. The positive ions and negative electrons move, and because protons are a couple of thousand times more massive than electrons, any force--electrical, magnetic, gravitational, even mechanical--can cause some separation of charges. An immeasurably small surplus of one electron or proton in a volume measured in cubic meters is all that's necessary for a weak electric field to exist in deep space. That electric field will drive an electric current, which will generate a magnetic field that interacts with the fields of other currents.
An elementary observation of matter in deep space is that the currents tend to form twisted pairs of filaments, called Birkeland currents, that snake along the magnetic field lines. These filaments suck in surrounding ions and gas and dust as if they were cosmic vacuum cleaners …
(…)
The initial condition of the observed universe is that of charges already separated. “Charge Separation in the Mind

That sounds like the cosmic star producing version of Meyl's vortex, and anti-vortex tubes, spherical (ball lightning) and collimated 'structures' etc . Achelson says the filaments “suck in the surrounding ions...” with an electric field driving the currents etc, Meyl says “squeezing” the “charge carries” together to form a central channel. Not a lot of difference there.

One then gets into infinitesimal fluctuation, divergence, ratios, gradients, cross products, vectors, dot product (scalar) etc of the “fields” of “free space” (potentials) over time. With “charge” already being separated as a “plasma” and “charge exchange” occurring as well another interesting point was raised in this TPOD:

... we are starting with a plasma universe in which charges are already separated. So we need to consider theories that don't begin with the assumption that you can't get charge separation in space. We don't need theories that explain how imaginary objects like black holes can separate charges; we need theories that explain how charges combine to produce what we see. - Charge Separation in Space"

Without crossing into other philosophical areas we have this 'oscillating dynamic' occurring with the combining of “charge carriers” from existent 'field potentials' of 'quantum charge' (permeability and permittivity of "space"), and no one knows how those initial “fields” of potential exist or were put into action from perhaps a speculative ideally uniform 'symmetry' of 'scalar' potentials resulting in said E-fields being the driver of those electric currents.

Perhaps the dynamic has always been there making the big bang's 14 billion or so "beginning" and supposed eventual 'winding down' of the universe nothing more than ill put speculation.

Hope that wasn't too much of a tangent.

[earls]

It's the act of neutralizing existing separations of charges that provides the prodigious energy driving and shaping the universe.

Amen.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Solar,
From the TPOD:

... we are starting with a plasma universe in which charges are already separated. So we need to consider theories that don't begin with the assumption that you can't get charge separation in space. We don't need theories that explain how imaginary objects like black holes can separate charges; we need theories that explain how charges combine to produce what we see. - Charge Separation in Space"

Well stated by the unnamed author of that particular TPOD.

[seasmith]

~
Solar,

quoting M. Achelson:

...that the currents tend to form twisted pairs of filaments, called Birkeland currents,

Is what i was referring to, as opposed to a single conducting path or arc.
Guess i wasn't very coherent in my attempt at written English .

Yes, we know that Mr. K. Birkeland is not a "modifer", in the grammatical adjective sense.


s