Z-pinch Sunspots

Dancing David

Penultimate Amazing
Dancing David
Joined
Mar 26, 2003
Messages
39,700
Location
central Illinois
On the z-pinch and sunspots as examples of z-pinch phenomena.

In other threads much of the electric sun model has been discussed at some lenth and confusion of subject matter. A certain poster has made two claims in seperate threads, one that sunspots are where Birkeland currents enter the sun. And in another that sunspots are an example of possible z-pinch effect and that this provides the energy for the sun. Although the notion that the corona is heated by the z-pinch seems to have some merit I want to address this claim.

I am sure that the temperature of sunspots may become an issue of debate , yet two sources say the following:


http://eo.nso.edu/MrSunspot/answerbook/sunspots.html
Sunspots are darker than the rest of the visible solar surface because they are cooler: Most of the visible surface of the Sun has a temperature of about 9700 F (5400 C), but in a big sunspot the temperature can drop to about 7200 F (4000 C). Sunspots come in sizes between about 1500 miles (2500 km) and about 30,000 miles (50,000 km), so they are much smaller than the Sun itself, which has a diameter of 865,000 miles (1,392,000 km).
Click to expand...

http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Classroom/Lessons/Sunspots/
The photosphere has a temperature of about 5500 degrees Celsius and a typical sunspot has a temperature about 3900 degrees Celsius.
Click to expand...

So if the light given off by the sunspot is an indication of it’s temperature then a sunspot might be considered to be at a temperature ~5700 K,~4100K or ~4300 K


Trying to find a rough estimate of the temperatures needed for a z-pinch scenario to occur I found the following.

http://aps.arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0802/0802.1883.pdf
Some of the earliest attempts to realize controlled nuclear fusion were based on the z-pinch, where a large current is discharged through a column of deuterium-tritium (DT) gas, to compress and heat the DT to the ignition temperature of 10 keV.
Click to expand...

But I am not sure how to translate keV to conventional temperature although I know it is a measure of energy.


So here I found another source for possible temperatures for hydrogen fusion to occur.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/nucene/coubar.html#c2
Deuterium-deuterium fusion : 40 x 10^7 K

Deuterium-tritium fusion: 4.5 x 10^7 K

In the sun, the proton-proton cycle of fusion is presumed to proceed at a much lower temperature because of the extremely high density and high population of particles.

Interior of the sun, proton cycle: 1.5 x 10^7 K
Click to expand...

And so that would appear to me that he temperature for fusion could be:

- 40x10000000 or 400,000,000
- 4.5x10000000 or 45,000,000
- 1.5x 10000000 or 15,000,000

Or at least I am assuming that the numbers are in degrees Kelvin, but 400,000,000 sounds a whole lot higher that the three million usually given for fusion, so it could be they are in keV.

I don’t think they are because then the numbers would go even higher.

So……

If the temperature required at the center of the sun is 1.5x10^7 K and that is because of the density of the material, how are we going to get a z-pinch to fuse at the temperature of ~4000K?

Of course I am sure I missing something here.
 
Dancing David said:
But I am not sure how to translate keV to conventional temperature although I know it is a measure of energy.
Click to expand...

Divide the energy by Boltzmann's constant kB = 8.6x10-5 eV/K to get the temperature. In the case of 10 keV, that gives us (10/8.6)x108 K = 116 million deg. K. Of course, these are all only ballpark figures: for a thermally driven process, the rate as a function of temperature is not a step function.
 
My personal thoughts on sunspots is that they are areas where the normal outward travelling solar wind inverts, and you get small currents of particles streaming back into to the sun, against the predominant direction. This may explain the temparature minimum, as the particles are entering from the cooler region just above the photosphere, and they would also shield that area from the heat being generated below.

In terms of why sunspots are black, i'm going to pass on that one for now, i have not so far seen a definitve reson for this. Surprising really, any process that changes the electron transitions and the subsequent wavelengths of the light emitted would be a viable one.
 
The real problem with direct Z-pinched fusion is that the experimental evidence “indicated that magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities prevented the pinched plasma from reaching the required plasma temperatures and densities for fusion in equilibrium”. If those instabilities could not be overcome under controlled laboratory conditions, I find it highly unlikely that conditions would be any more stable or controlled in such a chaotic environment as the surface of the Sun. Z-pinches do work just fine as X-ray sources for indirect-drive Inertial Confinement Fusion. However once again due the extreme controlled conditions require (specifically the symmetry of the incident radiation flux), I find that even indirect-drive Inertial Confinement Fusion from a solar surface Z-pinched plasma is highly unlikely in such a chaotic environment as the surface of the Sun.

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/ripc/physics/fec1998/pdf/ov3_4.pdf
 
Dancing David said:
A certain poster has made two claims in seperate threads, one that sunspots are where Birkeland currents enter the sun. And in another that sunspots are an example of possible z-pinch effect and that this provides the energy for the sun.
Click to expand...

David, once again you misrepresent what I actually said. I'm not certain whether I ever linked something that made the first claim. I suppose it's possible. But I certainly didn't make the second claim. I drew your attention to an image that happens to have a sunspot in it but it also has something else ... an bright many filamented event in the vicinity but not directly over the sunspot. And that might be a z-pinch. I made every effort to get you to look at that something else but apparently your blinders made it impossible for you to see anything but the sunspot. :rolleyes:
 
Dancing David said:
And in another that sunspots are an example of possible z-pinch effect and that this provides the energy for the sun.
Click to expand...

Furthermore, I never once claimed that z-pinches provide the energy for the sun. You asked what could produce heavy elements in the electric sun model and I pointed you to z-pinches which appear to reach both the temperatures and densities needed to do that according to current mainstream theory. I never once said or implied that the energy from the sun was coming from z-pinches. So how you managed to get it into the dark matter inside your head that I did ... is puzzling. :D
 
Sometimes people just make stuff up. It's fun!

















Until somebody points out you just made it up.
 
Wikipedia has a good article on sunspots where is is clearly stated that they are only dark in contrast to the surrounding material. A temperature of 4000-4500 K means that they are brighter than an electric arc.
 
Hi BeAChooser
The standard solar model states that all of the energy from the Sun is produced by fusion. The model then gives a calculation of the rate of production of neutrinos. Experiments here on Earth have verified that the Sun produces this neutrino flux.
What is the prediction from your model of the neutrino flux and how does it match with the experiment?
 
Last edited:
BeAChooser said:
David, once again you misrepresent what I actually said. I'm not certain whether I ever linked something that made the first claim. I suppose it's possible. But I certainly didn't make the second claim. I drew your attention to an image that happens to have a sunspot in it but it also has something else ... an bright many filamented event in the vicinity but not directly over the sunspot. And that might be a z-pinch. I made every effort to get you to look at that something else but apparently your blinders made it impossible for you to see anything but the sunspot. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Roll your eyes, i asked where there was evidence of a z-pinch on the surface of the sun and you posted the picture. Perhaps your opaque answer is too opaque.

Ever the con man, your answer was the picture with no explantion, just as when I posisted that if Birkeland currents were enetering the sun it would effect the corona and you posted a picture of a sunspot. Since you won't explain youself it isn't my blinders but your lack of effort in explanation.

Here is the post with your cryptic answer and lack of explanation:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3481581&postcount=517

But a z-pinch near the solar surface can produce metals and other elements and alter the ratio of hydrogen and helium in the near surface atmosphere. In an electric star, heavy element abundances would not be fixed but would be created in the outer layers by the high-energy discharges. Red giants could simply be stars that once were subject to higher electric current density (producing lots of metals and converting H to He) which are now, for whatever reason, traveling through a region with lower current density.
Click to expand...

So where is the evidence that the surface of the sun has the temperature to support a z-pinch BAC?

So where does the energy come from to causes the sun to shine BAC?

Please do answer, tell us that is Birkeland currents or whatever you think it is.

Your lack of explanation is telling, you don't understand your own theories so you fail to explain them. But then perhaps you are better saying less and just not explaining anything.
 
Last edited:
BeAChooser said:
Furthermore, I never once claimed that z-pinches provide the energy for the sun. You asked what could produce heavy elements in the electric sun model and I pointed you to z-pinches which appear to reach both the temperatures and densities needed to do that according to current mainstream theory. I never once said or implied that the energy from the sun was coming from z-pinches. So how you managed to get it into the dark matter inside your head that I did ... is puzzling. :D
Click to expand...


Uh huh, so what provides the power that illuminates the sun BAC, perhaps the problem is that you spew so much nonsense you don't remember what you post.

The z-pinch you mentioned in answer to my question was a galactic jet if I recall correctly or was it a supernova?

You can't answer direct questions because you don't understand that which you try to present.

1. What would the field strenth of a magnetic field need to be to move the sun and other stars as per the Perrat model?

2. What provides the energy which power the sun BAC, where is the sun does it occur?

3. How does plasma cosmology explain the general proportions of H, He and Li?

4. How do iron whiskers produce a black body spectrum?

These questions still await your answer as does the sampling error of Arp and statistics of QSOs.
 
Last edited:
Hi Dancing David
One thing to remember about z-pinches is that they are another magnetic mechanism to produce conventional fusion. The other methods include gravitation (as in stars) and inertia (as in hydrogen bombs). This means that the temperatures that we are talk about are those of normal fusion, i.e. millions of Kelvin.

BeAChooser
If there are z-pinches occurring anywhere on the surface of the Sun then we have to wonder why astronomers have never noticed these massively hot (million K!) spots. Why have the many satellites observing the Sun not recorded them?
Can you tell us the answer?
 
Reality Check said:
Hi Dancing David
One thing to remember about z-pinches is that they are another magnetic mechanism to produce conventional fusion. The other methods include gravitation (as in stars) and inertia (as in hydrogen bombs). This means that the temperatures that we are talk about are those of normal fusion, i.e. millions of Kelvin.
Click to expand...

I am aware of that, I am trying to maintain composure and try to have a discussion with BAC, some days I don't respond as well as I should. Wisely or not I am trying to get BAC to actually discuss issues rather than post and run or spin.

I anticipate a deafening silence or discussion of coronal events and snippetts of pop science and journal articles.
 
Reality Check said:
Experiments here on Earth have verified that the Sun produces this neutrino flux.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? The standard solar model says the nuclear reaction taking place inside the Sun produces electron neutrinos. Although the total neutrino flux may be close to the required level, the number electron neutrinos can only be inferred as being sufficient if they ‘oscillate’ into other types of neutrinos. Seems to me the only way the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) could have determined a change in type with any certainty is by detecting the type of neutrinos at both ends of the pipe running from the sun to the earth. They didn't do that. They detected neutrinos only at the earth's end. When Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) declared that “the SNO detector has the capability to determine whether solar neutrinos are changing their type en route to Earth”, I think they were somewhat dishonest ... or perhaps as Ziggurat likes to say, "sloppy".

Fermilab’s MiniBooNE, a very recent neutrino experiment (albeit not the same kind of neutrinos), stated (http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/04/11/miniboone-neutrino-result-guest-blog-from-heather-ray/ ) concluded "The MiniBooNE neutrino data set agrees with the no neutrino oscillation hypothesis, in the range of reconstructed neutrino energy from 475 MeV to 3 GeV. The probability that MiniBooNE and LSND both are due to two-neutrino oscillations is only 2%.”

And I don't know of any more recent experiment that actually proves neutrinos oscillate. Do you?
 
Reality Check said:
Hi BeAChooser
The standard solar model states that all of the energy from the Sun is produced by fusion. The model then gives a calculation of the rate of production of neutrinos. Experiments here on Earth have verified that the Sun produces this neutrino flux.
What is the prediction from your model of the neutrino flux and how does it match with the experiment?
Click to expand...

One of the beautiful things about that is that physicists (way back in 1969) were able to predict that neutrinos oscillate based on an observed deficit in the quantity of solar electron neutrinos. That prediction was treated skeptically for years (people were more inclined to believe there was an error either in the calculations or in the experiment, which is very difficult) until it was experimentally confirmed by several experiments recently, using neutrinos generated by both nuclear reactors and particle accelerators, as well as observations of solar neutrinos that were able to detect more than just electron neutrinos.

Here's a nice description of much of that:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/articles/bahcall/
 
Last edited:
BeAChooser said:
Fermilab’s MiniBooNE, a very recent neutrino experiment (albeit not the same kind of neutrinos), stated (http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/04/11/miniboone-neutrino-result-guest-blog-from-heather-ray/ ) concluded "The MiniBooNE neutrino data set agrees with the no neutrino oscillation hypothesis, in the range of reconstructed neutrino energy from 475 MeV to 3 GeV. The probability that MiniBooNE and LSND both are due to two-neutrino oscillations is only 2%.”

And I don't know of any more recent experiment that actually proves neutrinos oscillate. Do you?
Click to expand...

Your reference also said
Neutrinos have definitively been observed changing from one type into another,
Click to expand...
 
Reality Check said:
This means that the temperatures that we are talk about are those of normal fusion, i.e. millions of Kelvin.
Click to expand...

It might interest you to know that z-pinches have actually achieved temperatures in the billions of Kelvin.

Reality Check said:
If there are z-pinches occurring anywhere on the surface of the Sun then we have to wonder why astronomers have never noticed these massively hot (million K!) spots. Why have the many satellites observing the Sun not recorded them?
Click to expand...

http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/flares.htm "Overview of Solar Flares ... snip ... A composite spectrum of a large flare is shown in the figure below, where the contributions to the total emission are indicated in the different energy ranges. The longer wavelength or softer X rays from less than 1 keV to several tens of keV are produced by hot plasma with a temperature of at least 107 K (and possibly as high as several times 108 K in some cases)."
 
BeAchooser
hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/flares.htm "Overview of Solar Flares ... snip ... A composite spectrum of a large flare is shown in the figure below, where the contributions to the total emission are indicated in the different energy ranges. The longer wavelength or softer X rays from less than 1 keV to several tens of keV are produced by hot plasma with a temperature of at least 107 K (and possibly as high as several times 108 K in some cases)."
Click to expand...
That article is about flares not z-pinches. Flares of course contain plasmas that can have very high temperatures but they have nothing to do with z-pinches. The question I asked is about z-pinches. Why have they have not been observed if they are as energenic as the laboratory experiments you quote suggest?
In addition do you have a calculation of how many z-pinches it would take to produce the observed neutrino flux? My impression is that there would have to be on the order of millions per second but please prove me wrong if you can.

Forget about the question of neutrino oscillations. Just tell us how your model produces neutrinos and whether the predicted flux matches the observed result. If oscillations exist then we just multiply the number of observed neutrinos by 3. If they do not then we just accept the number seen. In either case I would be interested if you can provide a prediction that is even an order of magnitude of the observed result.
 
Wikipedia have a good article on neutrino oscillation for those who are interested.
BeAChooser
Note that the previously posted URL for Super-Kamiokande contains their neutrino oscillation data only in PostScript format but their original July 3 1998 paper to Physical Review Letters is at www-sk. icrr. u-tokyo.ac.jp/doc/sk/pub/nuosc98.submitted.pdf.
Also the MiniBooNE analysis is still ongoing but there is a paper published that states:
The MiniBooNE Collaboration reports first results of a search for $\nu_e$ appearance in a $\nu_\mu$ beam. With two largely independent analyses, we observe no significant excess of events above background for reconstructed neutrino energies above 475 MeV. The data are consistent with no oscillations within a two neutrino appearance-only oscillation model.
Click to expand...
In other words there was no evidence for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations in the LSND region, refuting a simple 2-neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND results. This does not refute a more complex neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND results.
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory did not assume neutrino oscillations. Their results demonstrated neutrino oscillations. Read their first results paper at www .sno .phy .queensu.ca/sno/first_results/sno_first_results.pdf.
 
BeAChooser said:
Super-Kamiokande

I see nothing at that site stating they proved neutrinos oscillate.

Sudbury

Sudbury just ASSUMED they oscillate, like I said. They didn't prove it.

Kamland

Kamland's results are very controversial and the more recent experiment I linked above did NOT confirm their result.
Click to expand...


All the results are explainable by neutrino conversion. The miniBoone results do not deny conversion.
 
BeAChooser said:
It might interest you to know that z-pinches have actually achieved temperatures in the billions of Kelvin.



http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/flares.htm "Overview of Solar Flares ... snip ... A composite spectrum of a large flare is shown in the figure below, where the contributions to the total emission are indicated in the different energy ranges. The longer wavelength or softer X rays from less than 1 keV to several tens of keV are produced by hot plasma with a temperature of at least 107 K (and possibly as high as several times 108 K in some cases)."
Click to expand...


Okay, so where does the energy that powers the sun come from BAC, it is what?

You have elucidated so many different things and now I am asking you:

Where does the energy that powers the sun come from, what rough proportions if it is a mix?

The electric sun has been presented by you, were you just rattling chanins?
 
Reality Check said:
That article is about flares not z-pinches. Flares of course contain plasmas that can have very high temperatures but they have nothing to do with z-pinches.
Click to expand...

You sure?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1976SoPh...49...95V "Solar flares and plasma instabilities - Observations, mechanisms and experiments,
Authors: van Hoven, G., Journal: Solar Physics, vol. 49, July 1976 ... snip ... Several models have been suggested for the configuration and initial instability involved in a large or sunspot flare. ... snip ... On the right in this figure is shown the model of Alfven and Carlqvist (1967) in which a pre-existing current filament is somehow pinched at one point. They propose a new charge-separation instability driven by the resulting large super-thermal electron drift, which causes a substantial resistivity increase and interruption of the current. The inductive energy of the entire circuit is then dumped at this point. ... snip ... Let us now turn our attention to several laboratory experiments which have attempted to reproduce the theoretical predictions of these last two sections and, therefore, to model a solar flare. ... snip ... This is the double-inverse-pinch experiment, in which large currents are pulsed in parallel through two insulated rods. ... snip ... A similar experiment is that of Dailey, Davis and Lovberg, (1972); Davis and Dailey, 1973), shown in Figure 12. The flat annular pinch is produced by an inductive discharge in the background neutral hydrogen gas ... snip ... Figure 13 is an example of a more conventional plasma experiment, the annular, or hard-core, Z-pinch of Anderson and Kunkel (1969)."

Notice that every one of the experiments mentioned includes a pinch, even when they are claiming that magnetic reconnection is occuring.

Here are some later references that seem to mention pinches as possible explanations for flares:

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6878842 "Phenomenological model of solar flares, 1978, Astrophys. J. ; Vol/Issue: 221:3, ... snip ... imply that the flare process is a near quasi-static and quasi-thermal steady-state dissipative flux annihilation of the parallel current density associated with a helical twisted flux tube. Classical thermal conductivity along the lines of force and the tangled-flux surface model of controlled-fusion B/sub z/ pinch experiments lead to a ``buffered`` steady-state electron temperature < or =2 x 107 K, the almost universally observed thermal X-ray temperature."

http://www.springerlink.com/content/kt40937w26383v30/ "The linear Z pinch and the stellar flare phenomenon, V. S. Airapetyan and A. G. Nikogosyan, 1988"

http://www.springerlink.com/content/n176h043j83m8q17/ " Pinch mechanism of energy release of stellar flares, V. S. Airapetyan, V. V. Vikhrev, V. V. Ivanov and G. A. Rozanova, 1990"

And here's a really current source ... from Sandia Labs, no less.

http://www.physlink.com/News/060312SandiaZ.cfm "Sandia’s Z machine has produced plasmas that exceed temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin — hotter than the interiors of stars. The unexpectedly hot output, if its cause were understood and harnessed, could eventually mean that smaller, less costly nuclear fusion plants would produce the same amount of energy as larger plants. The phenomena also may explain how astrophysical entities like solar flares maintain their extreme temperatures."
 
Now how exactly did they do that measuring only the neutrino flux here on earth? Care to explain that?
Click to expand...
It is simple - just read the links. Basically detectors typically burried in mines to eliminate background radiation.
Are you saying that every solar flare is a z-pinch? The articles you quote state that solar flares MAY BE caused by or contain z-pinches.

Are you going to answer my original question? "Just tell us how your model produces neutrinos and whether the predicted flux matches the observed result"
 
Reality Check said:
Quote:
Now how exactly did they do that measuring only the neutrino flux here on earth? Care to explain that?

It is simple - just read the links. Basically detectors typically burried in mines to eliminate background radiation.
Click to expand...

You misunderstand. I'm not asking whether they successfully detected the existence of neutrinos or how they did that. I'm asking how they could tell from a neutrino measurement made only on earth that some neutrinos oscillated between the sun and here ... given that there was no detector anywhere else but here on earth.

Reality Check said:
The articles you quote state that solar flares MAY BE caused by or contain z-pinches.
Click to expand...

Well isn't that what you were doubting when you told us there was no connection between z-pinches and solar flares? :)
 
Reality Check said:
Wikipedia has a good article on sunspots where is is clearly stated that they are only dark in contrast to the surrounding material. A temperature of 4000-4500 K means that they are brighter than an electric arc.
Click to expand...


Which is how it is possible to project a partially black image onto a white screen in a partially illuminated room. Dark spot projectors are still in development :)
 
I'm asking how they could tell from a neutrino measurement made only on earth that some neutrinos oscillated between the sun and here ... given that there was no detector anywhere else but here on earth.
Click to expand...
Read the link. Basically they detected the various types of neutrinos.

So you agreee with me that the papers merely suggest a connection between z-pinches and solar flares? That they do not prove a connection between pinches and solar flares?
 
BeAChooser
Another point: If z-pinches are the source of all of the solar neutrinos and z-pinches are caused only by solar flares then we would expect the neutrino flux to vary a lot, i.e. from zero when there are no flares to a high value when there are flares. Since solar flares occur several times a day and the neutrino detection experiments run for years contuniously collecting data then the change in flux would be detected. The neutrino flux would also change during the sun-spot cycle if z-pinches are associated with sun spots and would again be detected by the experiments. This variation would be Nobel Prize winning material but has not been reported.
 
FYI, Miniboone ruled out the results of the LSND experiment. That's as expected, because the LSND results were incompatible with all the other experiment done on neutrino oscillations (which agree with each other). Miniboone did NOT rule out neutrino oscillations in the range where they should be according to everybody but LSND - it has nothing to say about them.

You can see that on this plot - the expected range for delta m^2 is well below the exclusion region (which is above and to the right of the sold line).

limitdata_stacked.png
 
Last edited:
Reality Check said:
Read the link. Basically they detected the various types of neutrinos.
Click to expand...

That report is a little tough to read but they do appear to have reasonably inferred from the measurements that there are other flavored neutrinos in an amount that matches predictions. This is an easier to read source: http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach...CC+ES+SNO+neutrinos&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=26&gl=us . Ok, I'm convinced that the sun might be mostly nuclear powered.

That still leaves the question of what role electric current plays in the behavior of the sun and throughout the solar system. The role that pinches, birkeland currents, and double layers play. And it's still possible that some percentage of those neutrinos derive from those electric phenomena (since those neutrinos would presumable also oscillate from the moment of creation). I wonder ... has there been any thought to building a neutrino *camera* with enough resolution to tell where the neutrinos are actually coming from in the sun? Is it a point source near the core, or sources possible scattered throughout the body or near the surface?
 
Reality Check said:
The neutrino flux would also change during the sun-spot cycle if z-pinches are associated with sun spots and would again be detected by the experiments. This variation would be Nobel Prize winning material but has not been reported.
Click to expand...

Actually it has. And may still be an open issue.

http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~lms/research/neutrino.html

"Neutrinos and Sunspots: Any Correlation?

The Homestake experiment has been running for over two solar activity cycles (1 activity cycle = 11 years approximately) and it has been noticed that the neutrino fluxes are not constant. Many researchers have tried to link solar surface activity with neutrino fluxes and, depending upon whether you believe their statistical arguments, have succeeded. It has been claimed that the neutrino flux is correlated to solar radius and solar wind mass flux; and anti-correlated to line-of-sight magnetic flux, p-mode frequencies, and (you guessed it) sunspots. (If two quantities are correlated, then they increase and decrease together. If two quantities are anti-correlated, then when one increases, the other decreases, and vice versa.)

Many of these parameters are (anti-) correlated with each other and are internally consistent. The solar activity cycle is usually defined by sunspot numbers but sunspots are related to magnetic activity in the Sun. Many of these other parameters are also directly affected by magnetism. If these correlations really exist, then it would seem that neutrinos are reacting with the magnetic fields in the heliosphere and magnetosphere. Thus, from this evidence, the solution to the solar neutrino problem is a physical one.

Another possibility, rarely discussed, is that the solar neutrino flux is actually constant and it is the cosmic ray background that is varying. Cosmic rays are more likely to get through to the Earth during periods of low solar activity. Therefore, neutrinos generated in the Earth's atmosphere by cosmic rays will increase in number during these times. If this cosmic background flux is not correctly subtracted from the total detections, then it will appear that the solar flux is indeed varying with the solar cycle.
Click to expand...

And note that EU theorists say their theory would predict an anti-correlation between sunspot activity and neutrino flux.
 
BeAChooser said:
That report is a little tough to read but they do appear to have reasonably inferred from the measurements that there are other flavored neutrinos in an amount that matches predictions. ... Ok, I'm convinced that the sun might be mostly nuclear powered.

That still leaves the question of what role electric current plays in the behavior of the sun and throughout the solar system. The role that pinches, birkeland currents, and double layers play. And it's still possible that some percentage of those neutrinos derive from those electric phenomena (since those neutrinos would presumable also oscillate from the moment of creation). I wonder ... has there been any thought to building a neutrino *camera* with enough resolution to tell where the neutrinos are actually coming from in the sun? Is it a point source near the core, or sources possible scattered throughout the body or near the surface?
Click to expand...
The sun is entirely fusion powered since the measured neutrino flux is that predicted by the model of a fusion powered sun. We know how much energy the sun emits. We calculate the amount of fusion that produces this amount of energy. This fusion produces a neutrino flux and we measure that flux.

The role of electric current in the sun is minor. The role that pinches, birkeland currents, and double layers play are minor.

It is impossible for neutrinos to be derived from "electric phenomena". They are due to nuclear interactions not electrical ones.

There is little possibility of a neutrino "camera" since they do not interact enough with matter to be brought to a focus.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom