Thursday, October 10, 2019

New surprises about the physics at the boundary of heliosphere

I learned from interesting results about cosmic rays and behavior of magnetic field at the boundary of heliosphere (see the article Voyager Mission Reveals Unexpected Pressure at The Edge of The Solar System). The article Pressure Runs High at Edge of Solar System gives a more precise description of the findings.

There were two spacecrafts. Voyager2 was inside heliopause ad Voyager1 slightly outside it. They experienced different kind of reduction in cosmic ray flux. I picked up the following piece of text explaining the basic findings.

" The scientists noted that the change in galactic cosmic rays wasn’t exactly identical at both spacecraft. At Voyager 2 inside the heliosheath, the number of cosmic rays decreased in all directions around the spacecraft. But at Voyager 1, outside the solar system, only the galactic cosmic rays that were traveling perpendicular to the magnetic field in the region decreased. This asymmetry suggests that something happens as the wave transmits across the solar system’s boundary."


Consider first TGD based view about magnetosphere of Sun.

  1. TGD allows two kinds of magnetic fields: those for which flux tubes carry monopole flux and those for which they do not. Monopole flux tubes are impossible in Maxwellian world and solve several problems related to magnetic fields such as the existence of magnetic fields in cosmic scales, and the maintenance problem of the Earth's magnetic field (see this).

    One of the latest applications is to the undertanding of the weird properties of the magnetic field of Mars identified in the model as consisting of monopole flux tubes (see this) and thus visible only through northern and southern lights involving reconnections of the monopole flux tubes. Also Mercury has unexpectely strong magnetic field and it could correspond to monopole flux tube tangle associated with flux tubes from Sun.

    The latest application is to a model of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions (see this) known to be induced by cosmic rays but quite too deep for them to penerate to the depths required. There is strong correlation with solar minima and it has turned out that the solar minimum corresponds to maximum of magnetic field. There is also a causal anomaly: electromagnetic fluctuations in upper atmosphere precede rather than follow these event. The new view about magnetic fields and zero energy ontology predicting that arrow of time changes in "big" (ordinary) state function reductions explains these anomalies. Causal anomalies involving change of also thermodynamical arrow of time are a generic signature of macroscopic state function reductions in TGD Universe.

  2. Also a new view about cosmic rays emerges. Cosmic rays would travel along flux tubes of a gigantic fractal flux tube network defining analog of nervous system for the Universe (see this) . This picture leads to a rather detailed model for the formation of galaxies, stars and even planets as tangles along the flux tubes of this network having same topological structure as dipole magnetic field but with flux tubes carrying monopole flux (see this) .


  3. In TGD framework heliosphere corresponds to magnetically to U-shaped tentacles from Sun - flux tubes emanating from Sun radially and returning back to Sun and carrying solar wind and also cosmic rays. They look locally like parallel flux tubes carrying opposite magnetic fluxes. Flux tubes would extend to the heliopause and turn back and emit by reconnection narrow rectangle shaped closed flux tubes. By fractality these tentacles appear in all scales and are in crucial role in understanding of bio-catalysis and basic biochemical reactions like DNA replication, transcription of DNA to RNA, and translation of RNA to polypeptides.

  4. Cosmic rays can travel as dark particles along them in TGD sense meaning that they would have effective Planck constant heff=n× h0, where h0 is minimal value of heff. The flux tubes from Sun would thus bring dark particles along flux tubes. Suppose that the flux of cosmic rays arrive along these flux tubes, perhaps as dark particles.

Next one must translate various words to physical concepts in TGD framework.
  1. Heliosheath (Voyager 2) is expected to be a turbulent boundary region. Magnetic turbulence means that the directions of U-shaped flux tubes coming from Sun are random. This is magnetic counterpart of a boiling liquid.

    Closed U-shaped flux tubes from Sun reach the heliopause before reconnection meaning emission of closed flux tubes looking like narrow rectangles travelling in radial direction: the direction of the flux is assumed to be along the radial flux tube and two directions are possible.

  2. The region outside heliopause (Voyager 1) contains two kinds of monopole flux tubes, which need no current for their existence. Those of galactic magnetic field locally parallel to heliopause like in liquid flow around obstacle plus the the closed flux tubes as outcomes of reconnection. They are assumed to be narrow rectangle-like objects in radial direction coming from the heliopause. There are also flux quanta of ordinary magnetic field generated by currents.

  3. The wave called global merged interaction region (GMIR) caused by the activity of Sun means reconnections for the U-shaped flux tubes from the Sun at solar surface generating ordinary magnetic fields giving rise to sunspots. This reduces the number of U-shaped flux tubes and therefore also solar wind and the amount of cosmic rays arriving along them. Thus the reduction of solar wind and of cosmic rays both inside and outside heliosphere.

  4. If the local directions of solar flux U-shaped tubes inside heliosheath are random by turbulence the reduction of flux takes place in all directions. It the long sides of closed flux tube rectangles are radial (orthogonal to the dominating galactic magnetic field), the reduction of flux takes place only in directions orthogonal to the galactic magnetic field. This was observed.

  5. The high pressure could be due to the presence of closed flux tubes formed in reconnection and would represent the contribution of solar wind.

See the chapter TGD and Astrophysics of "Physics in Many-sheeted Space-time".

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

Articles and other material related to TGD.

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