Sunward Electrons

[Cargo]

However cosmic plasmas are neutral on scales above the Debye length because they are highly conducting, and so any charge separation will result in an electric field which will drive a current to restore neutrality.

Here we have an example complete opposite think and putting scale where it shouldn't be, then misusing it to represent something which is incorrect in itself because the basic focus is on the wrong concepts for which the supposed length doesn't even apply.

If a Plank doesn't work, just throw in a Debye or -1/0 something to make it so. Who cares about physical reality. We have the Infinite to play with.

[paladin17]

That bell curve image of the solar wind speeds that Bob cites demonstrates rather clearly that solar wind *cannot* actually be "net neutral" because there is no corresponding inbound "strahl" electron current to offset to offset the outbound strahl electron current. What it shows IMO is very clear evidence that sun acts as a *cathode* with respect to the surrounding 'space", which is also perfectly scientifically congruent with the fact that cosmic rays are overwhelmingly *positively* charged particles, traveling into, and bombarding our solar system at nearly the speed of light.

Recent observations confirm charge neutrality: sunward drift (with respect to protons) of core population compensates for strahl's negative charge loss.

In general, there are so many possibilities to actually shoehorn the idea of externally powered Sun into the [non-]observations that I'm a bit disappointed nobody have still proposed them.
E.g. we may claim there are very narrow (say, 100 km wide) tubes of current here and there: some carrying more electrons inward, some carrying more electrons outward: thus the charge is maintained, and yet the current reaches the photosphere in the end (but to an in situ probe they would look like random transient events - if it even encounters them).
Then one may say that there is actually plenty of sunward electrons, but they're moving in very wide spirals (so to an in situ probe it would look like they move tangentially and not to or from the Sun), taking many hundreds of orbits to reach the Sun.
Even the very idea that electrons/protons should not necessarily move very fast to produce a lot of current (the analogy with a regular metallic wire with ~ 1 mm/s electron drift velocity) is somehow not addressed. Given the overall ~ 10^36 particles/s output even a minor fraction of particles (~ electrons) moving a bit slower or faster than the rest (~ a wire) would be equivalent to a huge current, yet would be barely (if at all) detectable.
The lack of imagination in this general department is a bit depressing.

[Brigit]

by paladin17 » Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:33 am
"In general, there are so many possibilities to actually shoehorn the idea of externally powered Sun into the [non-]observations that I'm a bit disappointed nobody have still proposed them."

That is a very interesting remark, and I would like to partly agree with it: as we are discussing sunward electrons, it should be pointed out that the Plasma Wave instruments which have taken measurements of electron densities surrounding the Sun have indeed found that they increase closer to the Sun.

It is quite simple to see that this lends support to a cathode sun in which the negatively charged particles are streaming away from the sun radially, and therefore showing a decrease in density with distance. Well and good.

Except the same observations are a consequence of the anode sun model. Electrons (those encountered by Voyagers 1&2, Fig 5 pg 2) from beyond the heliosheath are streaming toward the sun radially.

As shown in Fig 3 pg 1, the electron drift is spread through a huge volume. The electric current becomes appreciable as the electron density increase near the sun.

But to say that these changes in electron density are "non-observations" is only partly true. The observations show a gradient of electron densities which decrease with distance, but do not measure the direction of the electrons, which appears to give support to either model.

[Brigit]

And to make things more interesting, within an electric discharge tube there are regions of increasing bands of ionization caused by electrons accelerating toward the anode.

[Higgsy]

In general, there are so many possibilities to actually shoehorn the idea of externally powered Sun into the [non-]observations that I'm a bit disappointed nobody have still proposed them.

I agree, and it would be interesting to brainstorm what others there might be. For example, you haven't considered time varying currents, with periods, say, in the tens or hundreds of years which would charge and discharge the Sun. Then we would have to be at a time when the electron and ion current amplitudes are equal (as determined by the Parker solar probe), and there would have to be a mechanism for storing the energy and releasing it steadily (although some solar cycle or other might be explained by the alternating current). Or very short period alternating current, say at 50Hz with the DC amplitude equal to the amplitude of ion current. In the spirit of shoe-horning not to mention grasping at straws.

But, you know, there are several problems with all of these ideas:
1) They are not observed. Maybe that's OK and we haven't looked appropriately, but it should be relatively easy to test the hypotheses by observations in the heliosphere (and I suspect when we come down to it, they are mostly already excluded by observation)
2) There still needs to be some credible mechanism to convert whatever current we propose into 10^26W of ~5000K blackbody photons in the photosphere
3) We already seem to have an extremely credible and tested means for generating 10^26W that does not require any current to heat the photosphere. The reaction rate looks pretty good given the core temps and pressures inferred from adiabatic compression, the PP/CNO ratio seems to have been recently confirmed by neutrino observations and all seems to be hunky-dory in the hydrogen to helium fusion worrld. It ain't broke. But anyway, this thread was started by Birgit to set out the electric Sun hypothesis in some detail, so we should let her get on with it, although I am finding it a painfully slow process. We haven't got through the heliopause yet.

[Higgsy]

as we are discussing sunward electrons, it should be pointed out that the Plasma Wave instruments which have taken measurements of electron densities surrounding the Sun have indeed found that they increase closer to the Sun.

It is quite simple to see that this lends support to a cathode sun in which the negatively charged particles are streaming away from the sun radially, and therefore showing a decrease in density with distance.

If they originate at the Sun, and they are part of the (neutral) solar wind then we should expect that the electron (and the ion) flux will fall with distance.

Except the same observations are a consequence of the anode sun model. Electrons (those encountered by Voyagers 1&2, Fig 5 pg 2) from beyond the heliosheath are streaming toward the sun radially.

Are they? Could you give us a reference to that? My understanding is that the heliospere has a velocity with respect to the ISM and that velocity of both ions and electrons away from the heliosheath is determined by that. We don't expect sunward material in the ISM in the heliotail, do we? Voyagers determined that the electron density was lower near the heliopause than beyond it into the ISM. Anyway, please do go on with setting out the electric Sun model - or is this part of it?

As shown in Fig 3 pg 1, the electron drift is spread through a huge volume. The electric current becomes appreciable as the electron density increase near the sun.

I'm sure you'll quantify that at some point.

[JP Michael]

3) We already seem to have an extremely credible and tested means for generating 10^26W that does not require any current to heat the photosphere. The reaction rate looks pretty good given the core temps and pressures inferred from adiabatic compression, the PP/CNO ratio seems to have been recently confirmed by neutrino observations and all seems to be hunky-dory in the hydrogen to helium fusion worrld.

Except no-one has explained a suitable mechanism as to why the corona is hotter than the photosphere, let alone a mechanism as to how the heat from the core radiates outward to the photosphere, cooling, then suddenly reheats at the corona.

[Higgsy]

Except no-one has explained a suitable mechanism as to why the corona is hotter than the photosphere, let alone a mechanism as to how the heat from the core radiates outward to the photosphere, cooling, then suddenly reheats at the corona.

There are two things here:
a) a mechanism for how the heat from the Sun radiates outward to the photosphere, cooling; and
b) a mechanism for how the corona is heated in a short distance to 1MK

With regard to a), I think there is an extremely credible mechanism (or rather two extremely credible mechansims which dominate in different regions). The first mechanism which operates throughout the sun is radiation and conduction (they amount to the same thing, the transfer of energy outwards by photon and electron collisions without the bulk flow of matter. If energy is being created in the core then, of course, the core temperature will be higher than the surface, and there will be a temperature gradient radially throughout the Sun. Since for any radial distance element the equilibrium radiation spectrum represents on average more energetic photons radially outwards than radially inwards, there is a net flow of energy outwards. By considering free-free absorption and Compton scattering for the various elements present, it is possible to determine the opacity at any depth and therefore the mean free path of a photon before absorption or scattering. The energy flux can then be calculated. For the Sun, radiation transport of energy is sufficient uop the bottom of the convection zone, but for more masssive stars radiation is insufficient to transport all the energy on its own and those stars have convective cores.

The second mechanism is therefore convection. Convective processes in compressible fluids cannot start until the temperature gradient is such that a rising element will not cool more rapidly adiabatically than the temperature of the surroundings falls with distance. At that point convection will become established. At the radial distance in the Sun where radiative transport becomes insufficient to transport all the heat, convective transport is intiated (although the actual temperature gradient for this condition is not very different from the adibatic temperature gradient) and continues up to the top of the photosphere where it is observed as granulation.

All of this is laid out in far more detail than I can possibly reproduce in a forum post in Tayler, The Stars: their structure and evolution, which I have recommended before. If you are interested in solar physics, it's a great starting point, with no maths more difficult than calculus.

With regard to b), everyone of course is in the same boat, as the vast majority of the Sun's energy is radiated from the photosphere at about 5800K and therefore any alternative heating mechanism would have to heat the photosphere to 5800K, and then in a relatively short distance the corona to 1MK. It's not that there are no credible mechanisms to heat the corona, but that there isn't enough data to select between the hypotheses we do have. The amount of energy to heat the corona is tiny compared with the total energy output of the Sun, and observations fro SOHO indicate that the coronal heating energy is derived from the Sun's magnetic field, but the details remain a work in progress.

I don't think the coronal heating problem on its own is any impediment to the credible and tested means for generating 10^26W that requires no electrical heating of the photosphere, especially since the coronal problem exists independent of the source of heating of the photosphere.

[Michael Mozina]

That bell curve image of the solar wind speeds that Bob cites demonstrates rather clearly that solar wind *cannot* actually be "net neutral" because there is no corresponding inbound "strahl" electron current to offset to offset the outbound strahl electron current. What it shows IMO is very clear evidence that sun acts as a *cathode* with respect to the surrounding 'space", which is also perfectly scientifically congruent with the fact that cosmic rays are overwhelmingly *positively* charged particles, traveling into, and bombarding our solar system at nearly the speed of light.

Recent observations confirm charge neutrality: sunward drift (with respect to protons) of core population compensates for strahl's negative charge loss.

It looks like the abstract would suggest that the numbers they come up with in terms of halo electron drift were specifically derived from fitting their *model* rather than direct measurement, but alas I haven't read the whole paper yet understand how they're describing these electron movement patterns. Suffice to say that the *fastest* (i.e. strahl) electrons, will carry the bulk of any outbound "current", at least cathode rays have the ability to respond to any changes at the heliosphere at the fastest speeds. The overall 'atmosphere' will essentially be 'quasi-neutral' or the sun's charge would in fact be building up over time, and there's no evidence that is the case.

In general, there are so many possibilities to actually shoehorn the idea of externally powered Sun into the [non-]observations that I'm a bit disappointed nobody have still proposed them.
E.g. we may claim there are very narrow (say, 100 km wide) tubes of current here and there: some carrying more electrons inward, some carrying more electrons outward: thus the charge is maintained, and yet the current reaches the photosphere in the end (but to an in situ probe they would look like random transient events - if it even encounters them).
Then one may say that there is actually plenty of sunward electrons, but they're moving in very wide spirals (so to an in situ probe it would look like they move tangentially and not to or from the Sun), taking many hundreds of orbits to reach the Sun.
Even the very idea that electrons/protons should not necessarily move very fast to produce a lot of current (the analogy with a regular metallic wire with ~ 1 mm/s electron drift velocity) is somehow not addressed. Given the overall ~ 10^36 particles/s output even a minor fraction of particles (~ electrons) moving a bit slower or faster than the rest (~ a wire) would be equivalent to a huge current, yet would be barely (if at all) detectable.
The lack of imagination in this general department is a bit depressing.

What's more disappointing is their "ho-hum" attitude as it relates to working laboratory physics. Both an anode and cathode solar model produce a higher temperature solar atmosphere around a full spherically shaped sun. The MRx quagmire that plagues solar physics today is built upon "pseudo-scientific" mathematical quicksand, and none of it works in the lab to even produce something as simple as a *sustained* planetary aurora.

The only way to explain solar system physics is to embrace an "electrical" model (of choice). The mainstream only embrace magnetism, without embracing circuit theory or even understanding how to apply circuit theory to the same physical events.

[jacmac]

I have a question for anyone who might know.
I am thinking that except for the two Voyagers and Ulysses missions all
other space probes have been relatively close to the ecliptic or invariable plane.

Is this correct ?

Do we have limited or biased information, due to probe locations, relative to the entire solar system ?

[paladin17]

I have a question for anyone who might know.
I am thinking that except for the two Voyagers and Ulysses missions all
other space probes have been relatively close to the ecliptic or invariable plane.

Is this correct ?

Do we have limited or biased information, due to probe locations, relative to the entire solar system ?

Pretty much. The only other spacecraft are other deep space missions, yet the inclinations of their orbits (with respect to solar equator) are still pretty small.
Pioneer 10 has 8.6 degrees, New Horizons has 9.3 degrees, Pioneer 11 has 17.4 degrees. Compare that to 38.1 degrees of Voyager 1, 72.1 degrees of Voyager 2 and 79.5 degrees of Ulysses.

[Brigit]

by Higgsy » Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:31 pm

Brigit wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 4:05 pm
as we are discussing sunward electrons, it should be pointed out that the Plasma Wave instruments which have taken measurements of electron densities surrounding the Sun have indeed found that they increase closer to the Sun.

It is quite simple to see that this lends support to a cathode sun in which the negatively charged particles are streaming away from the sun radially, and therefore showing a decrease in density with distance.

If they originate at the Sun, and they are part of the (neutral) solar wind then we should expect that the electron (and the ion) flux will fall with distance.

You could expect that too. Sure! (:

Eventually the Parker Solar Probe is going to come up, and we'll compare our expectations with what we find coming from that spacecraft.

What I expect is that Parker is cruising through nested shells of increasing and decreasing ionization. And some of the neutral Hydrogen will be found arranged radially with these striations. And not only that, another thing to be appreciative about an anode/cathode setup is that there are also ionized and neutral metals in the interplanetary medium. They are coming from the Sun, and they are more or less affected by the double layers and electrical potentials they encounter.

[Brigit]

2/2

by Higgsy » Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:31 pm

"Except the same observations are a consequence of the anode sun model. Electrons (those encountered by Voyagers 1&2, Fig 5 pg 2) from beyond the heliosheath are streaming toward the sun radially." ~Brigit

"Are they? Could you give us a reference to that? My understanding is that the heliospere has a velocity with respect to the ISM and that velocity of both ions and electrons away from the heliosheath is determined by that." ~Higgsy

Nice eye. We don't want to whistle past the heliosheath. (It isn't the only double layer in the discharge, either.)

As every one has already noticed, we are actually all talking about three different objects, by the same name.

The heliosheath that Higgsy is referring to is a kinetic model based on velocity and such.
In the Plasma Universe the heliosheath is a plasma double layer. And
The Electric Universe picks up where the Plasma Universe leaves off, and the plasma double layer heliosheath also serves as a "virtual electrode" to the anode sun.

There have been questions raised about whether there is a plasma double layer at the heliosheath, how it got there, and how it is sustained and does not short out.

In the Plasma Universe, the universe is made of 99.9% matter in the plasma state. The plasma is inhomogeneous -- it is made up of plasmas of differing temperatures, magnetization, degree of ionization, chemical constituency, and relative motion. Transition regions or double layers form between cells and filaments of differing plasma types. Since the heliosheath is the boundary between the Sun's electrical environment and the interstellar medium, a plasma sheath is formed between the differing plasmas. See the ion thruster in Fig 12 for example.

[paladin17]

One issue I have with the idea that heliosheath (or heliopause) is a double layer is that in this case, according to Alfven (see also here), it should disrupt magnetic field lines. But it is not observed: instead, the magnetic field beyond these boundaries (as we've briefly discussed in a neighboring topic) retains its toroidal direction.
So the outer boundary of Sol must be a current sheet, not a double layer (which is understandable, since we need to somehow support the change in magnetic field strength). And there indeed was a surge of current detected right before the heliopause. The current sheet itself certainly may contain double layers, but they would be oriented perpendicularly to the boundary.

[Higgsy]

2/2

"Except the same observations are a consequence of the anode sun model. Electrons (those encountered by Voyagers 1&2, Fig 5 pg 2) from beyond the heliosheath are streaming toward the sun radially." ~Brigit

"Are they? Could you give us a reference to that? My understanding is that the heliospere has a velocity with respect to the ISM and that velocity of both ions and electrons away from the heliosheath is determined by that." ~Higgsy

Nice eye. ... See the ion thruster in Fig 12 for example.

Nowhere in this reply is the answer to my question, which I ask again. Where is the evidence in the Voyager data for the assertion that "electrons (those encountered by Voyagers 1&2, Fig 5 pg 2) from beyond the heliosheath are streaming toward the sun radially"? I should be grateful for an answer to that.