From the Academy of Ad Hoc Apologies Heidelburg Institute of Theoretical Studies via physorg.com comes news that long standing problems with Big Bang cosmology have been solved by a supercomputer simulation model. Scientists are “surprised” by the match between their simulation of the imaginary heating effect of the emission of gamma rays from ‘black holes’ (Earth directed ones have been named ‘Blazars’) and the observed spectra of quasars.
Physorg takes up the story:
Every galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center. Such black holes can emit high-energy gamma rays and are then called blazars. Whereas other radiation such as visible light and radio waves traverses the universe without problems, this is not the case for high-energy gamma rays. This particular radiation interacts with the optical light that is emitted by galaxies, transforming it into the elementary particles electrons and positrons. Initially, these elementary particles move almost at the speed of light. But as they are slowed down by the ambient diffuse gas, their energy is converted into heat, just like in other braking processes. As a result, the surrounding gas is heated efficiently. In fact, the temperature of the gas at mean density becomes ten times higher, and in underdense regions more than one hundred times higher than previously thought. If the gas becomes hotter, weak [spectral] lines in the forest [in the spectra of quasars] are broadened. This effect represents an excellent opportunity to measure temperatures in the early Universe, while it was still growing up.
This allows us to elegantly solve a long-standing problem with the quasar data
says Dr. Ewald Puchwein, who conducted the large simulations on the supercomputer at HITS.
Prof. Volker Springel, scientific group leader at HITS, explains:
The process of blazar heating is especially exciting since this single effect is able to simultaneously solve several different puzzles in cosmological structure formation.
The group plans to further improve their simulation models for a still deeper understanding of the nature of blazar heating and its implications for today’s Universe.
Read the full story (I use the word advisedly) here.
The results have just been published in The Astrophysical Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. (So it must be true), and the details are found in the following papers:
The Lyman-alpha forest in a blazar-heated Universe. E. Puchwein, C. Pfrommer, V. Springel, A. E. Broderick, and P. Chang, 2012, MNRAS, in print, arXiv:1107.3837
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.3837
The Cosmological Impact of Luminous TeV Blazars III: Implications for Galaxy Clusters and the Formation of Dwarf Galaxies. C. Pfrommer, P. Chang, and A. E. Broderick, 2012, ApJ, in print, arXiv:1106.5505 http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.5505
The Cosmological Impact of Luminous TeV Blazars II: Rewriting the Thermal History of the Intergalactic Medium. P. Chang, A. E. Broderick, and C. Pfrommer, 2012, ApJ, in print, arXiv:1106.5504 http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.5504
The Cosmological Impact of Luminous TeV Blazars I: Implications of Plasma Instabilities for the Intergalactic Magnetic Field and Extragalactic Gamma-Ray Background. A. E. Broderick, P. Chang, and C. Pfrommer, 2012, ApJ, in print, arXiv:1106.5494 http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.5494
Here are some pondering about a head line which is beyond my comprehension.
IMO this topic is important since it goes direct to the heart of energy and matter interaction although I find the referred articles close to Alice in the Wonderland landscape. On the other hand I accept the image as realistic. Energy is leaving the the disk of the spiral galaxy from a central point in its plane perpendicularly in both directions. If it is from a black hole or from somethind else is unknown IMO.
Models are models and reality has to be separated from models. What I can accept is that there exist physical phenomena in the center of (old flat?) spiral galaxies that emit tremendous amounts of energy in the form of gamma rays (electromagnetic radiation). In this case each photon carry an energy > 100 GeV according to the article. This actually means the “matter” can be transported at the speed of light.
The energy needed for creating an electron/positron pair E = mc^2
gives that the combined mass equals the energy 2 x 9.11E-31 x c^2 Joule or 1.637E-13 J
which is equivalent to 1.022 Mev. This means that ONE gamma photon > 100 GeV can create 100E9/1.022E6 or 98000 electron/positron pairs! I have very hard to believe that my calculation is right. Anybody can check. It should also be able to create about 54 proton/(negative) proton pairs. I don´t know if there is any specific name for the latter. It should be close to a neutron plus an electron.
But what matters is that the energy is leaving the centre of the quasar at the spead of light and the article tells that gamma rays are not stable but will be transferred to matter. The created positrons can interact with any electron which have to be possible to detect. Does such and emission emission exist in the unvierse and is it measured? It is of much interest what happens if gamma rays can be converted to a proton and a neutron and an electron. This would just form a hydrogen atom and for sure there are many hydrogen atoms all over the universe.
The wave length of a 100 GeV photon is according to E = Planck´s constant x frequency
lambda = 4.13E-26 meter. Wikipedia tells “Gamma rays typically have frequencies above 10 exahertz (or >10E19 Hz), and therefore have energies above 100 keV”. There is a tremendous difference between 100keV and 100 GeV. I hardly believed my calculationsw again.
Atoms have sizes around 1E-15 m. What physical processes can generate photons with a wave length of 4E-26 m? Still, nobody seems to doubt that 100GeV gamma rays exist.
I would be interested in any comments to my ponderings.
Every galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its center.
Surely a typographical error.
The corrected text is: Settled Science hosts a super massive black hole at its centre.
Tim: Lol.
Hans: The title is just my bit of fun. Fun I felt it was fair to indulge in, for the reason Tim illuminates. Thanks for your considered comment, theb number crunching is a good start on unravelling the claims.
Interesting that the Earth is also losing matter at the poles, just like the galaxy?
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1997/ast09dec97_3/
Do the galactic poles have their own magnetosphere?
TB,
The topic as such is very important IMO.
I am trying to find statistics about gamma rays to find out if there are peaks around electron/positron anhilation and proton/(neutron+electron) anihilition. In a way I found both. There is a peak around 1-4 GeV emission in the Fermi gamma ray space telescope data. The anhilation emission of proton + (neutron +electron) should be 1.88 GeV if I calculated correctly.
I also found an extrodinary work done which shows that a positron excess has been found hitting earth at
https://news.slac.stanford.edu/features/fermi-gamma-ray-space-telescope-confirms-puzzling-preponderance-positrons
This indicates that the production of positrons and electrons is a common process and that the anhilation of positrons with matter takes time.
You could make a thread of this article alone. It shows a great scientific feat based on creativ thinking.
All these gamma rays flying about … now I know why all the alarmists are big (ego wise), green and full of rage …
This link is to APOD and it shows a picture of the universe with the galaxy clusters with redshifts.http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110614.html
Reblogged this on boringbabu and commented:
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Main stream science saying that electrons and positrons are being created in the vacuum and making hydrogen, what ever will they think of next. Maybe the two electrons make a quark and two quarks get together with the help of a positron to make a neutron and the neutron likes an electron and hey presto we have hydrogen. Hydrogen has a rather large role in universe building.
Wayne Job says: May 17, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Main stream science saying that electrons and positrons are being created in the vacuum and making hydrogen.
Are these guys for real?
The whole problem is that a “vacuum” does NOT equal a “total void” or “empty space”.
A partial “vacuum” is created on Earth by removing gas particles from an enclosed space. I doubt that a full total “vacuum” has ever been created or observed, it really is just a theoretical state [or mathematical construct] removed from reality.
Even the concept of a full total “vacuum” only implies: no gas particles.
It does NOT imply: a void without matter.
It does NOT imply: a void without electromagnetic radiation
If you somehow managed to create a full total “vacuum” it would have to be within an enclosed space i.e. surrounded by matter. Now if you suddenly detected a hydrogen atom in this imaginary total “vacuum” what would you assume?
a) The hydrogen atom was liberated from the enclosing solid material because nature abhors a vacuum.
or
b) The hydrogen was formed from material already contained within the “vacuum”.
or
c) The hydrogen formed from energy contained within the “vacuum” i.e. E=Mc2
or
d) The hydrogen appeared by magic out of nothing i.e. a very small “big bang”.
Tim Cullen says: May 17, 2012 at 2:48 pm
“…….because EM waves do not require a medium for transmission….”
The experiment does illustrate the importance of a medium to carry energy.
This is a hypotheitical statement that can be true or not true as far as I know. It is a crucial question weather there is a medium in “empty” space or not. IMO space can be “filled” by energy which is what gravity does in a way which is very similar to how space is “filled” by energy by an electrical charge on a sphere.
Consider a photon moving through a window. What physical factor is slowing down its speed by about 40% in the glass if not a medium holding “energy density” at another quantity than “empty” space in between the molecules?
There are other arguments which support the old “ether” hypothesis, too.
mkelly says: May 16, 2012 at 4:13 pm
“This link is to APOD and it shows a picture of the universe with the galaxy clusters with redshifts.http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110614.html”
Thanks for this link. It is amazing how much work has been done to chart the redshift of galaxies (50000) and how little work is done to interprete the same redshifts in a ways that makes sense, at least more sense than a single variable solution postulating an (accelerated) expanding universe.
From where is the expansion energy coming in a universe where its components mostly seem to contract (galaxies, clusters, solar systems, gas clouds forming stars etc)?