Is charge carriers movement per se an electric current?

[mcfc16]

Here are a few bits and bobs from a book I own, entitled 'Basics of the Solar Wind', by Nicole Meyer-Vernet. She is a well respected plasma physicist.

The book is paywalled, and not cheap. There are ways around that for those that know how, but I will not spell it out here for the sake of the forum owners. On the other hand, I have a copy, if anyone wants one;

5.4 A mixture of fluids

The simple fluid picture considered above has a major drawback. Since the medium (1) is made of electrons and protons (plus heavier ions in lesser concentration), and (2) is weakly collisional, it should not be pictured as a single fluid but as (at least) two fluids. This question was first addressed long ago [16], and early reviews may be found in [3] and [25].
To make things simple, we neglect the ions heavier than protons because their concentration is too small for them to affect the overall dynamics much. We therefore consider a plasma made of electrons and protons pictured as two different fluids, rather than a single fluid made of ‘average’ particles. How does this change the physics? Or rather does this bring about qualitatively new results?

Electrons and protons have opposite charges, but their masses differ by the factor mp/me ~ 1837, so that electrons have a thermal speed greater than protons by a factor of order of magnitude (mp/me)^1/2 ~ 43 (because their temperatures have generally the same order of magnitude). This has several consequences:

• whereas protons are strongly bound close to the Sun, electrons barely feel gravity; indeed, at a temperature of 10^6 K, their thermal speed ~ 5.5 × 10^6 m s−1 is nearly 10 times greater than the escape speed;

• the greater thermal speed of electrons is expected to make them carry heat much faster than do protons;

• collisions between electrons and protons exchange energy at a rate ∼ (mp/me) slower than the rate of momentum exchange, which is itself slow since the medium is weakly collisional; hence electrons and protons may have different temperatures;

• since electrons and protons are subjected to very different forces (and may have different temperatures), an electric field sets up to preserve electric quasi-neutrality

Since electrons and protons have opposite charges, electric quasi-neutrality requires them to have roughly the same number density n. Furthermore, since the radial electric current must vanish otherwise electric charge would accumulate indefinitely on the Sun, electrons and protons should have also the same radial bulk speed. The simplest generalisation of the one-fluid picture is therefore to consider two fluids having the same bulk velocity but different particle masses, temperatures and heat fluxes.

Which you'll find is basically what I have posted upthread.

&

5.4.1 Simple balance equations

We have seen in Section 4.6 that in a static isothermal atmosphere with equal proton and electron pressures, the gravitational attraction – acting essentially on protons – tends to displace them inwards with respect to electrons. The corresponding space charge induces a radial electric field E directed outwards, which adjusts itself so that the total attraction on a proton mp Msun G/r^2 − eE is equal to the attraction on an electron eE, whence E = mp Msun G/2er^2. We shall see later that when the plasma is moving and the proton and electron pressures are not equal, the electric field has a somewhat different value.

So, if anyone thinks you can ignore G in plasma physics, then I am afraid that you are not talking about plasma physics.

[nick c]

Hi mcfc16,

Welcome to the forum.

No, the movement of charged particles in this case does not constitute a current. It would be the case if there was only one charge involved.
Or if there was an excess of one charge over the other. It would also be the case if the positive and negative particles were separated.

I am not a professional scientist/researcher/academic. ( I assume from reading your posts that you are involved in one or more of those activities.)
But it seems to me that, perhaps, your view of the forest is being blocked by all of the trees.
So, I will start with a very basic approach.

What is the simple definition of "electric current"? and what is the simple definition of "solar wind"?
Let's look it up, the underlining is mine....

WIKIPEDIA: An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space.

BRITANNICA: any movement of electric charge carriers, such as subatomic charged particles (e.g., electrons having negative charge, protons having positive charge), ions (atoms that have lost or gained one or more electrons), or holes (electron deficiencies that may be thought of as positive particles).

MERRIAM WEBSTER: a movement of positive or negative electric particles (such as electrons) accompanied by such observable effects as the production of heat, of a magnetic field, or of chemical transformations

We could quibble over semantics, but by the standard definition of "electric current", in the English language, is: a movement, flow, or stream, of charged particles.
So what is the simple definition of "solar wind"?

GOOGLE "solar wind definition": the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun which permeates the solar system

WIKIPEDIA: The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona.

So the solar wind in its simplest definition is a "moving, flow, or stream of charged particles coming from the Sun." Therefore, by the accepted English language definitions we can construct the following through simple logic....

Electric Current = Moving Charged Particles
Solar Wind = Moving Charged Particles
therefore:
the Solar Wind is an Electric Current

Are you disputing this logic? (As an aside: I propose the that name Solar Wind should be changed to "Solar Current" as the term "wind" is scientifically inaccurate.)


The solar wind is a plasma. Overall charge neutrality of a plasma does not make it behave as a gas. It is still a plasma and within it are filaments of moving charged particles. It is still a flow of charged particles originating from the Sun. It is therefore an electric current connecting the Earth to the Sun and going one step further, we can theorize that the Earth is part of a larger electric circuit centered on the Sun.

Auroras are powered by the Sun via the solar wind and CME's. That is analogous to a neon light in a pub window; in which the gas in the glass tube is made to glow by an electric current. Without the electric current the gas cannot glow. When it is time to close the Pub the owner pulls the plug and the glowing neon sign goes dark. The solar wind and CMEs are the electric current that causes the auroras to glow and shimmer.

The very existence of the aurora at both poles of our planet, and other planets, is consistent with the proposition that the solar wind is an electric current. All the theoretical or semantic arguments to the contrary, do not change the fact that auroras on this and other planets are powered by the electrical connection of the planets to the Sun, via the solar wind and CME's.

If you can maintain an open mind here is some further reading:

The Electric Sky by Donald E Scott

The Interconnected Cosmos by Donald E Scott

The Essential Guide to the Electric Universe by Jim Johnson, edited by Bob Johnson

Common Misconceptions

Solar Electricity

[jackokie]

@mcfc16 As is typical of mainstream astrophysics, there is no mention of electromagnetism in your posts, nor did I find it on the main page of Princeton MRx. Your examples, and indeed almost every NASA communication on the subject treat magnetism as if it were some isolated phenomenon, yet one needs only a general understanding of electromagnetism to understand that there is no magnetism without electricity. This is one more example of the current debased state of science. Here is one of many conundrums of the idea that magnetic reconnection is tied to solar flares and the solar wind: If the particles are "flung out" at the time of reconnection, why do they accelerate away from the sun? The almost fanatical refusal to consider electricity in mainstream astrophysical research or discussions renders them moot.

The link below is to a thread from last year in which magnetic reconnection comes up. This snippet from that discussion is relevant to your posts and my comment about them.

https://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpBB3 ... n&start=15

When astronomers fixate on a supposed "solution", like "magnetic reconnection", they tend to fixate only upon the mathematical models, but they never make any effort to compare their models to what actually shows up in real lab experiments. That's a serious problem. MRx is *never* going to produce a *sustained* process of plasma acceleration because it's incapable of doing so. At best you'll get a *temporary* acceleration of plasma while magnetic fields are changing over time. It won't produce a sustained aurora, or a corona, which is why that's never been accomplished with MRx, a full century after it was accomplished with circuit theory and electric fields.

[jackokie]

@mcfc16 Meant to include these links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILUmJmDi6uM&t=2s

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2020/0 ... pace-news/

https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2020/1 ... agination/

[mcfc16]

Hi mcfc16,

Welcome to the forum.

Cheers. I have snipped for brevity, as well as my own formatting skills, or lack thereof.

As for the definitions you posted, they are very simplistic. So, when you say;

Are you disputing this logic? (As an aside: I propose the that name Solar Wind should be changed to "Solar Current" as the term "wind" is scientifically inaccurate.)

My answer, and that of anybody else qualified in PP, would be 'Yes, and the solar wind is not a current' I refer you to the passage I posted from Alfven's 1939 paper in my first post;

The stream approaching the earth contains positive and negative charge in equal amounts so that the electric current is zero.

Alfven was no idiot. He didn't get everything right, but he had that figured out pretty early on. It has to be that way. Otherwise, as he said;

But, as Schuster has shown, the emission of a sufficient amount of particles, all having the same sign, is impossible because it would give rise to an enormous space charge.

Bolding is mine.

That is not to say that charge imbalance cannot occur in the solar wind, or any other plasma. However, it is usually restricted to ~ the Debye length. Beyond which the plasma restores quasi-neutrality by the setting up of an ambipolar electric field.

So, to go back to the dictionary definitions, let me posit this as a simple exercise;

What is the overall current in the following parcel of plasma?:

-+-+-+-+
+-+-+-+-

Continue for as many rows as you like and convert it mentally into 3D.

You'll find that the sum of the + charges are cancelled out by the sum of the - charges. Zero current, as Alfven tells us. So, simply moving charged particles around does not equal a current. As I also said previously, for it to be a current, you would need only one sign of charge, an excess of one sign of charge, or the + and - charges to be separated. The latter is what happens as the quasi-neutral solar wind encounters the magnetosphere, as Alfven says in the passage I quoted.

You say;

Overall charge neutrality of a plasma does not make it behave as a gas.

I don't believe I said that. What I did say is that any plasma will act to restore quasi-neutrality when it becomes imbalanced. I mean.... try stopping an electric field from arising when you separate electrons and ions! To keep the charges separated, you need an external force. You have that as the solar wind plasma encounters the magnetosphere of whichever planet that has one.

I cannot stress this enough - the solar wind is not a current, and cannot possibly be one. I refer back to Alfven's enormous space charge, and the Sun exploding due to Coulomb repulsion. The sum of the negative charges leaving the Sun MUST be balanced by the sum of the positive charges leaving the Sun. Things get very messy otherwise!

It is still a plasma and within it are filaments of moving charged particles. It is still a flow of charged particles originating from the Sun. It is therefore an electric current connecting the Earth to the Sun

Wrong, sorry. Of course, it is a free country (at least the one I live in), and you are free to believe whatever you wish. However, you will not find a plasma physicist to agree with you. Including Hannes Alfven. In fact, he directly contradicts your interpretation. My encounters with electric universe proponents over the years led me to believe that Alfven cannot possibly be wrong about anything He was. But not this. Nor about the Sun being powered by fusion in the core. It's pretty basic stuff.

Auroras are powered by the Sun via the solar wind and CME's.

Yes. Which is what Alfven was talking about in the passage I quoted. The current/s don't exist until the solar wind encounters a magnetosphere. They are induced. They do not exist within the solar wind itself.

The solar wind and CMEs are the electric current that causes the auroras to glow and shimmer.

No. They are not a current, as noted previously. They do not become a current until they encounter the magnetosphere. As Alfven tells us. And as decades of in-situ measurements tell us.

The very existence of the aurora at both poles of our planet, and other planets, is consistent with the proposition that the solar wind is an electric current.

No offence, but not according to anybody who understands plasma physics. If you have a Ouija board, try contacting Hannes, and telling him that he got it all wrong I requote;

Hannes Alfven:

The stream approaching the earth contains positive and negative charge in equal amounts so that the electric current is zero. Through the action of the magnetic field of the earth the paths of the positives and of the negatives become differentiated, but until the particles reach the forbidden region, the space charge is always zero because the positives and negatives neutralize each other.

Now, do we believe Alfven, and every other plasma physicist on this subject, not to mention decades of in-situ measurements of the solar wind and heliospheric environment, or do we believe .......... whoever is claiming that the solar wind is a current? I know what I'm going with.

All the theoretical or semantic arguments to the contrary, do not change the fact that auroras on this and other planets are powered by the electrical connection of the planets to the Sun, via the solar wind and CME's.

Electrical? Yes, in that they are due to charged particles emitted by the Sun. A current? Nope. I hate to keep quoting Alfven, so I would suggest reading what he said carefully. It is not a current until it reaches what Alfven called the 'forbidden zone'. He was very clear on this. You may wish to junk his interpretation of the formation of the aurorae, but it is close enough (not perfect) that it is still valid, certainly in terms of his interpretation of a current-free solar wind. I know of nobody qualified in PP who thinks the solar wind is a current.

As for your links, they don't seem to be to peer-reviewed literature. Isn't Don Scott the one who thinks he can get a drift current of electrons in from beyond the heliosphere to power the Sun? It should be obvious to anyone conversant with plasma physics, and the solar wind, why that is impossible. He's an engineer, isn't he? Perhaps he ought to stick to that?

If you want a run-down of why that is impossible, just ask. This post is long enough as it is!

[mcfc16]

@mcfc16 As is typical of mainstream astrophysics, there is no mention of electromagnetism in your posts, nor did I find it on the main page of Princeton MRx.

Errrm, you probably need to read some of their papers, yes? What could be more electromagnetic than magnetic reconnection? It involves magnetic fields, and a current sheet, and plasma and.........!

Your examples, and indeed almost every NASA communication on the subject treat magnetism as if it were some isolated phenomenon, yet one needs only a general understanding of electromagnetism to understand that there is no magnetism without electricity. This is one more example of the current debased state of science. Here is one of many conundrums of the idea that magnetic reconnection is tied to solar flares and the solar wind: If the particles are "flung out" at the time of reconnection, why do they accelerate away from the sun? The almost fanatical refusal to consider electricity in mainstream astrophysical research or discussions renders them moot.

Sorry, but you've lost me. Of course MR accelerates particles! Should be obvious. As observed. And you may well need a current to initiate magnetic fields, but that current can well be long gone. or a long way away. It does not affect the continued existence of the magnetic field. I would suggest acquainting yourself with the 'Biermann battery'. After all, the solar wind is not a current. Yet it carries the Sun's magnetic field 100+ AU to the heliopause. Where it meets the ISM field. Which is also not carried by a current.

The link below is to a thread from last year in which magnetic reconnection comes up. This snippet from that discussion is relevant to your posts and my comment about them.


When astronomers fixate on a supposed "solution", like "magnetic reconnection", they tend to fixate only upon the mathematical models, but they never make any effort to compare their models to what actually shows up in real lab experiments. That's a serious problem. MRx is *never* going to produce a *sustained* process of plasma acceleration because it's incapable of doing so. At best you'll get a *temporary* acceleration of plasma while magnetic fields are changing over time. It won't produce a sustained aurora, or a corona, which is why that's never been accomplished with MRx, a full century after it was accomplished with circuit theory and electric fields.

Nope. They have been doing experiments since 1995. It supports MR. They have in-situ detections in the magnetosphere from multi-spacecraft missions. We see it occur on the Sun. At an X-line. Care to tell us what else that might be? Preferably in the peer-reviewed literature. You won't find any plasma physicist denying MR these days. The evidence is overwhelming. It is an observation. A detection. Who is saying otherwise, and what are they qualified in?

And you have added links to non-peer-reviewed stuff by unqualified amateurs. Sorry, but you need to do better than that. Get me a plasma physicist who denies the reality of the observations and detections. In the peer-reviewed literature. Preferably in the last ~ 27 years, when it has been demonstrated in the lab, detected in-situ, and observed on the Sun.

[mcfc16]

a full century after it was accomplished with circuit theory and electric fields.

You do realise that circuit theory is antiquated, and tells you precisely zero about the plasma, yes? That is where Alfven went wrong with MR. It is a huge approximation. Even more so than MHD. And MR cannot happen under ideal MHD. Which was Alfven's problem. Ideal MHD needs to break down for MR to occur. That much should be obvious. Alfven imposed boundary conditions on his circuit theory that showed MR could not happen. He was right. However, his boundary conditions were unrealistic. And unphysical. Because he used circuit theory. A massive approximation. We know better now.

[mcfc16]

@mcfc16 As is typical of mainstream astrophysics, there is no mention of electromagnetism in your posts

You are confusing astrophysics with plasma astrophysics. There are literally thousands of plasma physicists involved in astrophysics. All I ask is that you quote a single one of them who disagrees with the findings of plasma physicists involved in astrophysics. And then I will deal with it. I suspect that is not going to happen.

[Cargo]

Are we really using a question about 'charge carriers' to descibe solar or plantery scale activity.

Charge carriers are particles or holes that freely move within a material and carry an electric charge. In most electric circuits and electric devices, the charge carriers are negatively charged electrons that move under the influence of a voltage to create an electric current.

Should agree on the context and definition Charge Carriers first?

[Cargo]

Also, I know I took it a bit off-topic earlier when I commented on the 'ions affected by gravity' stick. So I'll just leave these here and maybe later I'll bring up how GEM and it's off-spring do nothing but taint the plasma space to explain electric forces with gravity. Otherwise they Black Hole Jets wouldn't work. But of course when people believe in Dark Matter nothing is impossible.

Gravity is a four billion times weaker than the electromagnetic force that drives electrons in circuits, and so has absolutely no effect on electricity

[mcfc16]

Are we really using a question about 'charge carriers' to descibe solar or plantery scale activity.

Charge carriers are particles or holes that freely move within a material and carry an electric charge. In most electric circuits and electric devices, the charge carriers are negatively charged electrons that move under the influence of a voltage to create an electric current.

Should agree on the context and definition Charge Carriers first?

We were discussing, based on the OP, whether the solar wind, or a CME therein, constitutes a current. It doesn't. To the best of my knowledge, nobody qualified in plasma physics is claiming otherwise. I quoted a passage from Hannes Alfven explaining why that is impossible. Perhaps you should start with that?

[mcfc16]

Also, I know I took it a bit off-topic earlier when I commented on the 'ions affected by gravity' stick. So I'll just leave these here and maybe later I'll bring up how GEM and it's off-spring do nothing but taint the plasma space to explain electric forces with gravity. Otherwise they Black Hole Jets wouldn't work. But of course when people believe in Dark Matter nothing is impossible.

Gravity is a four billion times weaker than the electromagnetic force that drives electrons in circuits, and so has absolutely no effect on electricity

If you are going to use quotes, it is best to tell us where they come from. I have done that to show that gravity is most definitely relevant to plasma physics around a massive body, such as the Sun. I even offered to share the book, written by a plasma physicist, with anyone that wants to read it. If you are going to claim that plasma physicists have got it all wrong, then random quotes from who knows where, do not cut it, I'm afraid.

Here is a referenced quote;

We can also demonstrate that the electrostatic interaction between two idealized stars charged with the electrostatic charges, derived here, is extremely weak compared to gravity. The magnitude of electrostatic force represents only about 10^−36 of the magnitude of gravity. However, if we study the dynamics of an electrically charged elementary particle or ion, with mass mx and charge qx, then the electrostatic force acting between this particle and charge Qr is −qx(mp −me)=(2qmx) multiple of gravitational force. Thus, the magnitude of the force represents about 50% of the magnitude of gravity, if the star acts on proton, and it is about 918 times more intensive than gravity, if the star acts on electron.

On the global electrostatic charge of stars
Neslusan, L. (2001)
A & A (Freely available)

And that describes essentially what I posted previously. When the electrons in the corona are accelerated beyond the Sun's escape velocity, ions are not. Therefore we should naively expect the solar wind to be composed solely of electrons. The reason it isn't, is that the resulting separation induces an ambipolar field that retards the electrons and accelerates the ions. That field reduces the gravitational force on the protons by ~ 50%. This ensures quasi-neutrality.

And black hole jets, as well as others, such as young stars, work because of the extremely powerful, twisted magnetic fields that occur. That does not apply to our star at its current epoch. It probably did in its youth.

As for dark matter, the evidence strongly supports it. Probably best to deal with that evidence.

[jacmac]

mcfc16, You talk about equal amount of ions and electrons resulting in a net neutral solar wind.
But that simple view ignores the existence of FLUX ROPES;
which indicates a current to form and maintain each "rope" (Birkeland currents)

Also, If the solar wind was so net neutral why would the ionosphere be effected by it ?

In agreement with Cargo, the different effects of gravity on ions or electrons in the presence of electromagnetic forces is nonsense.
What is it about 36 or 41 orders of magnitude between gravity and electromagnetism don't you understand ?

And I'll stick with Dr Scotts explanation of magnetic reconnection.

However, there is room for discussion of what is an electric current, as I believe it is known that
any given electron moves quite slowly in a copper wire conducting electricity.
The Newtons Cradle device seems to illustrate what is happening in a dense wire, but what about in plasma ?

[Cargo]

Dear mfcf16, you are about to get into a strange quark string trying to support a precious gravity and black hole theory that is so archaic and over-used it just as worthless as as a tenth of a basis point in interest. I've overstate the effect of "gravity" of course by a large magnitude because that's 0.01% in finance.

Now this may be hard to follow, but bear with me. The title of this thread is "Is charge carriers movement per se an electric current?"
I simple brought up that we should define what a charge carrier is first. How many charge carriers are in a bolt of lighting? Or the Aurora? Or in the light from my LED monitor, or in the monitor? What are we really discussing if we use an undefined (cue the Dark Matter) to then define something else. We get complete poppy-cock. Which is what it seems you believe it. Black Holes, Neutron Stars, Colliding Galaxies..

You like to quip about the Deby Length a few times, but you never mention what that length is in context of different 'areas' let's call them. Choose your power of 10 wisely. And what was the basis for making a Deby Length to begin with?

Do you believe in gravity-electromagnetism? How about Free Energy?

[Cargo]

Are we really using a question about 'charge carriers' to describe solar or planetary scale activity.

Charge carriers are particles or holes that freely move within a material and carry an electric charge. In most electric circuits and electric devices, the charge carriers are negatively charged electrons that move under the influence of a voltage to create an electric current.

Should agree on the context and definition Charge Carriers first?

I don't know if there's a point to continuing but I think this is a good place to start again if it matters.