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87 views8 pagesPlasma Cosmology Anthony Peratt
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Plasma Cosmology
Anthony L. Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory
‘SAAC ASIMOV'S “Nightfall” tells the
story of a civilization on a planet with
six suns, where night comes only once
every 2,049 years. Scholars of that world
hhave uncovered traces of at least nine
previous cultures, all of which reached a
height comparable to their own and then
vanished suddenly
Because of their viewing handicap,
those scientists’ cosmology is faulty. At
their most creative, they can only imagine
that their universe consists of perhaps a
few dozen “stars” — mysterious lights
that eccentric cultists are forever talking
about, When night does fall and myriad
stars shine forth, their cosmology, and
indeed the philosophical basis of their
society, crumbles.
Until recently our own view of the
universe also was handicapped, limited to
information derived from the narrow
range of wavelengths that make up visible
light, About the middle of this century
‘our Spectral window expanded to include
infrared and radio radiation. Then, begi
ning in the 1960's, space research opened
up the ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray
regions of the spectrum as well. Today
only very long-wavelength celestial radio
‘waves remain unknown to us. They are
blocked by the magnetosphere, a protec:
tive cocoon that envelops Earth,
Most of the radiation in the spectrum
‘comes from something called plasma. This
is a fourth state of matter, different from
a solid, liquid, or gas, but most closely
resembling the last, However, unlike
as, whose component atoms or molecules
are electrically neutral, a plasma is made
‘up of charged particles,
‘A plasma can form when a gas is heated
to such a high temperature that collisions
ionize it by tearing electrons from atoms.
‘The result is a cloud of free, negatively
charged electrons and positively charged
ions, atomic nuclei with one or more of
their attendant electrons missing
The term plasma also includes ionized
gas at a relatively low temperature, where
Only some of the atoms or molecules have
lost electrons. This state of matter even
exists inside a metal at room temperature,
In this case the conducting electrons in the
solid are free to wander through the rigid
crystal lattice of metallic ions.
Because ofits free electrons, a plasma is
a good conductor of electricity, much
better than copper, silver, or gold. Light-
ning offers one of the most dramatic
The plasina universe may be eternal
nd infinite, directly contradicting tho Big Bang
‘model. In this nonstandard picture, switling streams of electrons and fons form filaments
that span vast regions of space. Where ps
particles gain kinetic energy and at narrow “pind
falaxy types as well as the full spectrum of cosmic electromagnetic radial
alanis must le along filament, much as th
Dull of the filaments are invisible froma
of thew spaghetlike structures interac, the
* regions produce the entire range of
n. Thus
fare observed to do on a large scale. The
stance, much like the related Birkeland
ccurvents that circle Earth but are unobservable from it surface.
manifestations of this property. As a
thunderstorm develops, negative charges
accumulate along the cloud base, causing
Positive charges to build up on the ground
below. The resulting electrical field be-
tween the two concentrations becomes so
strong that it ionize the air. Ths creates a
conducting path of free electrons and ions
=a plasma — through which the light
ning discharges.
'A young engineer working for the Gen:
eral Electric Company gave plasma its
name, In 1923 Irving Langmuir, who went
fon to win the Nobel prize in chemistry,
‘was fascinated with the effect of electrical
discharges on gases. He borrowed the
term plasma from medicine because it
ced the unstable, almost lifelike behav-
jor of the ionized material with which he
‘experimented,
While all matter is subject to gravita:
tional forces, the negatively charged elec: asma also react 10 electric and magnetic
woes that are 10% times as strong. Be
use of these additional interactions, plas:
as display structures and motions that
¢ far more complex than those found in
vutral solids, liquids, or gases. Langmuir
38 among the first 0 note the separation
highly conducting plasma into charged.
uticle sheaths or cellularlike walls. This
ructure appears wherever samples with
ferent densities, temperatures, or mag-
atic field strengths come into contact.
Like flashes of lightning, terrestrial plas-
as are by and large transient. Even in a
‘or fluorescent bulb, the mixture of
fee electrons and ions remains only as
ing as the power is turned on. Extrater
strial plasmas are much more long-lived,
at until recently only a handful of scien”
sts had speculated about the universal
tent and character of such matter. Yet
most all of the observable universe is
fasma. Stars, for example, are gravita
onally bound plasmas, while all of inter
ellar and intergalactic space isa plasma.
‘THE PLASMA UNIVERSE
Wherever plasmas exist, they produce
‘odigious amounts of electromagnetic ra
ation, In particular, X- and gamma rays
‘om beyond the solar system are likely
‘oduced by free electrons with energies
orresponding to temperatures of more
an I million degrees — the realm of hot,
agnetized plasmas. We call the overall
cture obtained from these energetic emis.
ons the plasma universe.
re,
Birkeland
Currents east ine
‘Complex forees between two Birkeland currents, w
Supercomputer simulations of interactions between a pai
of galaxysie plasma filaments
can reproduce the shapes of cosmic radio sources. The brightness maps of actual double
radio galaxies in the top row show bewildering variety. Those at bottom are all from
diferent stags of one simulation. ‘The left figu
nereases toward the
Simulated interaction some 40” million years. later
parently unrelated radio galaxies may be part ofthe same fa
of development,
Hot plasmas also emit radiation of
lower energy, such as visible and radio
waves (we can both see lightning and hear
it on a receiver). However, the emission
does not always have a thermal origin,
For example, unknowing humans have
viewed synchrotron radiation (from elee-
trons spiraling at nearly the speed of light
in a magnetic field) from the Crab nebula
for centuries.
Synchrotron radiation is named after
the particle accelerators developed in the
Forces Between Two
keland Currents
REPULSIVE FORCE —=
= arrnacrive ronce
DISTANCE BETWEEN FILAMENTS —
ich are electric currents aligned slong
magnetiofield lines ereated by electrons moving tn helical orbits around and along the
Field lines. These currents have parallel components that exert a longerange attractive force
‘nd cirelar components that provide short-range repulsion. Left The geometry used in
‘computer simulations, If the electrons are moving near the spoed of light they emi
Synchrotron radiation beamed along their magneticfeid line, so the emission nearly
triers the magnetic(ield patter. Right: How the forces duc to the Birkeland current
‘Components vary with separation, slong with the behavior of the combined (net) force
‘corresponds to some 20 milion years
ht plot, which depicts the
"These calculations suggest that
ut at diferent stages
1930's and 1940°s to produce high-energy
electrons. In 1950 Hannes Alfvén, Nicolai
Herlofson, and Karl Kiepenheuer brought
this form of plasma radiation to astrono-
mers’ attention. Alfvén, who later won a
Nobet prize in physics for his solar stud-
jes, proposed that streams of electrons
move at nearly the speed of light along
rmagneticfield lines not only in. Earth's
magnetosphere und above the Sun, but
also throughout the cosmos. If so, sheets
fand ropes of electric current should eriss-
cross the universe in ever-increasing sizes.
These currents, Alfvén thought, should
sive the universe a cellular and filamen-
tary structure
Astronomers accepted Alfvén’s notion
of widespread synchrotron radiation but
refused to believe that electric currents
give rise co the large-scale structure of the
universe. In those days it was standard
cosmological lore that the universe be-
came smoother and smoother on larger
and larger scales. Huge filaments, sheets,
and walls of galaxies were unknown,
‘Modern plasma cosmologists have been
heavily influenced by the earlier research
fof Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland
(SAT: May, 1985, page 389). At the turn
of the century he suggested that electrical
currents due to “corpuscular rays"
(plasma) from the Sun caused the aurora
borealis, Such currents. were considered
impossible until they were discovered by
an artifical satelite in 1974. Enormous
Birkeland currents connecting Jupiter and
its moon To were recorded by the Voyager
spacecratt in 1978.
In 1984 Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, Don
Chance, and Mark Morris found an exam:
ple of Birkeland currents on a galactic
scale, Working with the Very Large Array
February 1002 Sky & Telescone 197 “These images from a supercomputer simulation trace the development of spiral structure ia two interacting plasma blabs over a span of
nearly I billion yeas. At the start of the interaction at upper lft the laments are 260,000 light-years apart; all 10 pancls are reproduced at
the same scale. Simulations suet as thi can reproduce the fll range of abserved spical-galay types using electromagnetic process rather
than gravitational ones. Unlem otherwise noted, allilutrations are courtesy the author.
Spectral lines can be redshifted toward
longer wavelengths or blueshifted toward
shorter ones. The Doppler effect ex-
plains how these shifts oceur because of
relative motions of the source and the
observer along the line of sight. Ap-
proach causes a blueward shift and reces-
sion a redward one.
Scientists have long believed that only
the Doppler effect or gravity as de-
scribed by Einstein could account for
wavelength shifts in the spectrum of
Tight as it travels through space. Where
neither factor applies, scientisis have
always assumed spectral invariance —
the spectrum remains the same no matter
hhow far the light travels. This is the case
with ordinary sources — called '“Lamber-
tian” after Johann Heinrich Lambert —
such as the blackbody radiation from
stellar surfaces
In the past few years, however, exper
ments have shown that there is’a third
way to shift spectral lines. This mecha-
nism involves non-Lambertian sources
‘hat emit beamed energy, such as lasers
and deviees producing synchrotron light.
The discoverer of the new effect is
physicist Emil Wolf, who, along with
Max Born, wrote the definitive textbook
Principles of Optics.
A mechanical analog to Wolt’s discov
ery is a pair of tuning forks with nearly
Identical resonant frequencies (pitches),
If these forks are connected together
mechanically by, say, a sounding board,
the coupling is strong and the resonant
frequencies tend to get “dragged down”
to lower ones. In other words, the
CAO Cue CRO bam. City
Left: Dus to the Wolf effect beamed eminion from two separate souress can interact
tnd shit Uhe wavelengths of lines in their spectra. The change can be redward or
blucward by different amounts depending on the observer's point of view, but from
“head-on” the sift i tothe red. This # a dlstinely diferent process than the more
Doppler effect. Right: Here the two mechanisms are compared for the eae of
cnygen lines with a redshift of 0.07. However, the light sourees im
effect are stationary not fleeing the observer at 84 kilometers per second.
wavelength is lengthened, or redshifted
This phenomenon has been verified ex-
perimentally with light waves and for
sound waves from coupled speakers
‘The actual frequency shift due to the
Wolf effect depends on the geometry.
As the illustration above shows, whether
fan observer sees a redshift or a blueshift
depends on his or her location with
respect to the source.
‘This mechanism can be extended from
the case of two radiating point sources
to that of a whole collection of such
objects, for example a plasma cloud.
Shifts of
10 Spectral Lines
cl fh ot
gE oone th
ved in the Walt
Wolf and his colleegues have shown that
such a cloud can produce shifts that
closely mimic the Doppler effect. The
figure above shows an example.
Thus the assumption that quas:
beamed electromagnetic radiators with
large redshifts — are part of the “Hub-
ble flow"” of an. expanding universe
could be wrong. Whether this also ap-
plies to normal galaxies remains unclear
This situation, coupled with the question
of the origin of the cosmic background
radiation, raises the possibilty that there
is really no need for the Big Bang. Filamentation — the transformation of energetic, high-temperature material into current-carrying bundles — is characteristic of plasma at
any seale, Left In the laboratory filaments are produced when « pulse-power geoerator delivers 10 trillion watts to a plasma only a few
Centimeters long, heating i to a temperature of 8,000,000" Kelvin. Center: Similar structure is seen
solar prominenees, but in this ease the
lengths are measured in hundreds of thousands of Kilometers. Photograph by Bonny Sundstrim. Right: Long, thin structures near the center
of the Milky Way szeich out over roughly 120 light years. Courtery Farhad Yusef Zadeh and Mark Mores. Another jump to a scale a few
nnlion times larger would bring us to the ize of
laments that plasma enemology needs to form galales. Thus the recent discovery of vast
filaments and sheets of galaxies spanning hundreds of milions of light-years is good news for plasma cosmology. Standard cosmology assumes
thatthe universe becomes smooth at very large scales.
radio telescope, they discovered an arc of
radio emission some 120 light-years long
rear the center of the Milky Way. The
structure is made up of narrow filaments
typically 3 light-years wide and running
the full length of the are (see the image
above, right). The strength of the associ
ated magnetic field is 100 times greater
than previously thought possible on such
1 large scale, but the field is nearly
identical in geometry and strength with
simulations of Birkeland currents in stud~
jes of galaxy formation (S&T: August,
1984, page 118).
SUPERCOMPUTING THE COSMOS.
‘The set of equations describing how a
filamentary, electrically conducting, mag-
netized plasma evolves is a mathemati-
cian’s nightmare! Because of this complex-
ity, effective solutions had to wait for the
advent of supercomputers.
Plasma theorists often use a method
called particle simulation. Some tens of
millions of “particles” are used to repre-
sent, say, a galaxy. But since a system
similar t0 the Milky Way may contain 10°
free electrons and fons, each particle in
the simulation actually represents a cloud
of real ones. These “superparticles” are
assumed to be in a magnetic field similar
to that between the planets in the solar
system, but much larger in size. The
‘computer then calculates how the particles
‘move according to the laws of electromag
‘The simplest simulation, whose geome-
try is pictured at the bottom of page 137,
teaces the interaction of two Birkeland
filaments made up of fast-moving elec-
tons (because of their greater mass, posi-
tively charged ions move more slowly and
are usualy ignored). No matter how many
SYNCHROTRON ENERGY
Te —
When two magnetized plasma filaments of
talactic dimensions Interact, they emit
farly bunt of synchrotron radiation that
Tass 4 million years a5.
filaments are present, the two closest 10
each other will alvays interact most
strongly, because the net force between
two like currents falls off in direct propor-
tion to the distance between them (see the
graph on page 137). This so-called Am-
pere's-law foree is stronger and has a
longer range than gravity, which falls off
as the square of the distance.
Because electrons spiral around: mage
neticfield lines, each fament has a circu
lar current component. Two such compo-
nents repel each other and in so doing give
off energy in the form of synchrotron
radiation like the example illustrated
above. In a typical case about 2 x 10"
joules are released over an interval of
some 4 million years (I joule will raise an
apple 1 meter off the ground). Dividing
the energy by the duration gives a radiated
power of 10° watts. Interestingly, this is
close to the output of a strong extragalac-
tic radio souree like Cygnus A.
‘The two-current simulation was one of
the first large-scale plasma calculations.
‘Today's supercomputer networks are
nearly 100 times more powerful than those
of just a few years ago, and simulations
can now involve as many as $0 million
particles. The calculations provide infor-
‘mation not only on sources’ power levels
‘and shapes but also on their polarizations.
Al of these properties can be compared
with results from radio telescopes.
‘One result of this improved perform.
ance is the ability to sort out the evolution
‘of “double” radio sources that until now
seemed unrelated, The top diagram on
page 137 suggests that double radio galax-
ies evolve from filamentary plasma, ar:
rnouncing their birth through a double
‘beam pattern of radiation that they retain
trough the era of synchrotron radiation.
‘The radiation patterns grow more com
plex as they fade, The plasma does not
disappear, however, and the illustrations
at the top of the facing page show how
double radio galaxies and quasars might
change first into peculiar and. Seyfert
galaxies, then into normal and barred
spirals. Filamentary plasma on supergalac-
te seales can produce a wide variety of
ealaxy shapes.
Calculations are now good enough that
we can compare their detailed predictions
with observations of how a galaxy’s rota-
tional velocity varies with distance from
its center (see the illastrations on the next
page). Simulations involving plasma can
match the data well and do not require a
large amount of “dark matter" (whatever
that is) to do so.
COSMIC BACKGROUND
In one view, the radio sky is peppered
with sources that chance to beam their
‘energy toward Earth. If so, what happens
Fohminry 1009 Sky & Tolescone 190 Comparing Rotation Curves
200
oop
‘of rotational velocity
radius in a spiral galany’s
