Celeste, That is a nice site. Notice that they don't mention the word 'plasma,' nor do they mention 'gravity.' Interesting. The local galactic plasma is very dymamic and complex. The motions of the component stars, in the bigger picture, must be governed by the rules of plasmas. Gravity, and any supposed rotation around the galactic center, is probably not a factor. I would suppose that there could be (of component stars) all sorts of corkscrew motions, eddies, and such. That's my take.
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
As far as stars changing position on the H-R diagram: The mainstream noticed that in these streams of stars traveling together, they had an "old" white dwarf mixed in here and there in a stream of "younger" stars. That caused them problems in their theories of star formation (if stars are created in some region of space and flung outwards, stars in a stream should be similar in age, or better yet, show a nice progression in age along the stream). They managed to find an answer in the form of "gravitational resonance", but for us, we should just keep in mind that odd mixture of stellar types within a stream. Which brings me to the point: We really should pay attention to these local "streams" of stars. I know there will be objections. "If the mainstream thinks redshift is radial velocity, can we trust their ideas of stellar motions?" "If the mainstream gets everything from 390 L.Y. ,to 440 L.Y. for the Pleiades parallax, can we trust their distance measurements?" Keep in mind, though, we are not looking to do numerical analysis yet. If all the mainstream can give us is "In this general direction,there is a group of stars running across our field of view one way, and behind them is a stream running another way",that is important. In the short term, we are having trouble "seeing" current filaments in space. If we can take a look at the streams of stars, we may have a clue where these filaments are running. If we do end up observing filaments in space, that is where the mainstream's work is going to really help us. We would like to see their "streams" being mapped onto our filaments. For example, if they determine that a stream of stars has a high common proper motion across the sky, but only a little bit of spread in individual velocities, we might expect to see a gently spiraling current filament. If they see a stream of stars with a large spread in individual velocities (which they see as binary pairs in the stream), we may see a more tightly wound filament pair. Maybe. It depends on which EU idea is right about where stars form in or between filaments. With that in mind, if they ever discover a stream of stars, with massive (fast orbiting) stars clumped in one section of the stream, that will get my attention. That is the motion I would expect to see near a z-pinch, if stars form in individual filaments, and spiral around the pinch point. If we end up seeing a stream of stars all traveling together through the same region of space, and end up observing filaments of "ionized gas" all running through that space in a totally different direction, then any of the EU theories of star formation I've seen so far, are all in a great deal of trouble. Even I may start saying things like,"stars form when gravitational collapse induces nuclear fusion".
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
nick c wrote: Celeste, That is a nice site. Notice that they don't mention the word 'plasma,' nor do they mention 'gravity.' Interesting. The local galactic plasma is very dymamic and complex. The motions of the component stars, in the bigger picture, must be governed by the rules of plasmas. Gravity, and any supposed rotation around the galactic center, is probably not a factor. I would suppose that there could be (of component stars) all sorts of corkscrew motions, eddies, and such. That's my take.
That's my view too. I'll share my picture here: Wal Thornhill showed how currents should flow along the spiral arms of a galaxy. But that must lead to secondary currents spiraling around the arms. Those currents should cross through the galactic plane,between the arms (just like our local chimney, and the chimneys seen in other galaxies). Those currents shouldn't cross straight through the galactic plane, because they are also spiraling ALONG the arms. The currents should cut through the galactic plane at an angle (again, just like the local chimney does). Now those secondary currents could drive motion of other stars in the galactic plane. Those stars would have a motion that was more or less in the galactic plane, just "bobbing up and down" through the plane. Which is where our sun comes in. Now, if that current in the local chimney, is really what is driving the sun's motion, then it should be driving our precession too. And that's where the whole thing started for me. Our axis of precession lies nearly 90 degrees away from the Pleiades. That's what we expect if a current running through the Pleiades generated a magnet field out by us.
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
nick c wrote: Celeste, That is a nice site. Notice that they don't mention the word 'plasma,' nor do they mention 'gravity.' Interesting. The local galactic plasma is very dymamic and complex. The motions of the component stars, in the bigger picture, must be governed by the rules of plasmas. Gravity, and any supposed rotation around the galactic center, is probably not a factor. I would suppose that there could be (of component stars) all sorts of corkscrew motions, eddies, and such. That's my take.
That's my view too. I'll share my picture here: Wal Thornhill showed how currents should flow along the spiral arms of a galaxy. But that must lead to secondary currents spiraling around the arms. Those currents should cross through the galactic plane,between the arms (just like our local chimney, and the chimneys seen in other galaxies). Those currents shouldn't cross straight through the galactic plane, because they are also spiraling ALONG the arms. The currents should cut through the galactic plane at an angle (again, just like the local chimney does). Now those secondary currents could drive motion of other stars in the galactic plane. Those stars would have a motion that was more or less in the galactic plane, just "bobbing up and down" through the plane. Which is where our sun comes in. Now, if that current in the local chimney, is really what is driving the sun's motion, then it should be driving our precession too. And that's where the whole thing started for me. Our axis of precession lies nearly 90 degrees away from the Pleiades. That's what we expect if a current running through the Pleiades generated a magnet field out by us.
seasmith
Re: star formation at z-pinch
If i may, with mod's permission, drop a few mytho-pan crumbs here-
MEROPE was one of the seven Pleiades, star-nymph daughters of the Titan Atlas. She married the impious king Sisyphos (Sisyphus) and was ancestress of the Korinthian (Corinthian) and Lykian (Lycian) royal families. Merope was said to have been so ashamed of her husband's crimes that she hid her face amongst the stars of heaven, and so the seventh star of the Pleiades faded away from human sight.
Her name is variously interpreted to mean "with face turned" from meros + ops, "with sparkling face" (mar)mairô + ops, and "bee-eater bird" merops. The first etymology was derived from the fading of the star, the second is a typically starry name--cf. Maira, the dog-star--, while the third reflects the connection of the Pleiades--who were also known as Peleiades or "doves"--with birds.
A natural progression, if indeed the Pleiadian core is twisting away through the purported "chimney", and the tail becomes obscured behind the head.
If we are willing to consider that an electric current does flow through the local chimney, what are some of the observations we may expect? We know from Marklund convection, that we should have two things happening. 1. We should have neutrals being forced outward. The fact that the chimney has a low density of neutrals, and is surrounded by a wall of dense neutral gas, both look promising here. 2. More importantly, we should also have ions and electrons drifting toward the central axis. Leading to increasing plasma density, until (if) we get those stable shells of ions based on ionization potential. So,how do we look for changes in plasma density? Well, if we have strong enough gradients, then according to Edward Dowdye's work, we should have bending of light, in the direction of increasing plasma density. The Pleiades stream is near the center of our chimney (which is why the mainstream suspected stars here may have formed the local bubble). The Pleiades cluster in particular, is near the galactic plane. and we know the chimney is narrowest there (it opens above and below the galactic plane). So, we have a lot of fast spinning, blue stars, at what looks like the narrowest section of a current filament. We may expect to find observable bending of light there. Which brings us to the Pleiades distance problem. We've talked about this before. The Hipparcos team measures direct parallax distance to the Pleiades, the Hubble team measures relative parallax. They get significantly different answers (~390 vs ~440 L.Y.), yet each team insists they are right. It shouldn't matter whether you use direct or relative parallax to measure distances, the answer should be the same. Unless, of course, light from distant stars (used in relative parallax) is bent towards the Pleiades. That would skew the relative parallax distance towards the longer direction. Kind of cool.
Lloyd, Are we sure that those stars are within the filament or are they visually aligned?
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
Nick, Yes, those stars are in the filaments. And Llyod, thanks for the link, it lead me to read on the Taurus Cloud, and I stumbled on to an article that made my night. (I'm saving the title of the article till the end of the post for a reason)
First Nick. The article said we have "star formation within the high density cores and filaments of the Taurus cloud". Exciting to see the mainstream see star formation in filaments! But wait. The rest of it is a let down. "star formation within the high density cores and filaments of the Taurus cloud attest to the gravitational collapse and lack of magnetic support within localized regions". So gravity forms stars, as long as magnetism ,(and therefore electricity), doesn't get in the way. But Nick, at least we have the stars in the filaments.
Because I want the title of the article to hit everyone like it did me: You realize that if we have a current running through the local chimney, and crossing through the galactic plane near Taurus, the current is running across our field of view at that point. We then have a magnetic field circling the current. Therefore, we have particles (charged and neutrals along with them), coming towards us on one side of the current filament, following across the magnetic field,and spiraling away from us on the other side. That is, we can trace a particle with velocity towards us on one side of the filament,watch its velocity change as it follows the magnetic field across the filament, to where it is receding on the other side of the filament. So now, here is the article: http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.2084 A big thank you again, Llyod.
seasmith
Re: star formation at z-pinch
You realize that if we have a current running through the local chimney, and crossing through the galactic plane near Taurus, the current is running across our field of view at that point. We then have a magnetic field circling the current. Therefore, we have particles (charged and neutrals along with them), coming towards us on one side of the current filament, following across the magnetic field,and spiraling away from us on the other side.
celeste, i guess you're invoking the "right-hand-rule", from local perspective, here ?
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
seasmith wrote:
You realize that if we have a current running through the local chimney, and crossing through the galactic plane near Taurus, the current is running across our field of view at that point. We then have a magnetic field circling the current. Therefore, we have particles (charged and neutrals along with them), coming towards us on one side of the current filament, following across the magnetic field,and spiraling away from us on the other side.
celeste, i guess you're invoking the "right-hand-rule", from local perspective, here ?
Yes, let's say, for the sake of argument, we have a current running left to right across our field of view. This leads to a magnetic field around it, staight up and down across our field of view. Particles have two motions 1. they spiral around filament, towards us on one side, across the filament, and then away from us. (the mainstream would observe a velocity anisotropy that was exactly aligned with the magnetic field). 2. particles travel down the filament (which is why the velocity anisotropy is not exactly aligned with the magnetic field). This should help us, since we have such trouble seeing current filaments directly. We can look at the particles we do see, and look for a huge magnetic aligned particle velocity anisotropy (here?: http://www.space.com/17707-the-hidden-f ... ebula.html) or a smaller weakly aligned anisotropy (here?: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cygnus-loop.gif) This is not far different from what I wanted someone to look at for stars(not particles) in the double helix nebula. we should see a systematic skewing of redshifts for stars on one side of the filament, compared to the other. I know redshift does not always equal radial velocity, but a component OF redshift must come from radial velocity.
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megamaser If you read the section "Hydroxyl megamasers" under "Hosts and environment", They have made some interesting correlations. High star formation and high molecular densities in luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), especially in those with masers. and "The far infrared luminosity and dust temperature of a LIRG both affect the likelihood of hosting an hydroxyl megamaser". They have some ideas backwards, however. Is it that star formation provides the light that heats the dust, which then gives off the infrared? Or is it the high temperature absorbed (and also re-radiated) by the dust, that aids in star formation?
If current filaments tend to eject neutrals, then how do we get star formation? By recombination. But if we take a case like the local chimney (a "tube" of hot sparse plasma, surrounded by a dense wall of neutral gas), how do we get recombination, out of a hot,sparse plasma? A z-pinch takes care of the "sparse", but how do we get rid of the heat? We transfer it to walls. We have all the ingredients here. We see the high dust temperatures,from absorption of heat. We see infrared, from radiation of heat. And we see the masering, which happens when we have inverted populations, (like when a hot, sparse plasma meets a wall of neutral material). They discuss whether radiation or collisions are doing the pumping, but in a z-pinch, we have both. Charges spiraling inward to a central axis leads to both radiation, and collisions. My point is, again, I don't believe we have neutral matter funneled in to z-pinch. If anything we should have more and more neutral matter ejected as we near z=pinch.
Cosmic plasma filaments which occur seem to be controlled by a Bennett z-pinch effect. These also in turn seem to be punctuated at certain discreet distances by a Bennett theta-pinch where neutral matter is accumulated and compressed into a prolate body. This body may be either a star, proto-star, or planetary.
celeste
Re: star formation at z-pinch
Let's look at a case where we can actually see a plasma torus around a pinched current filament: Gould's Belt is a plasma torus around the pinch in the local chimney filament. First let's describe the details. We know the local chimney (with the Pleiades stream running through it),is surrounded by a wall of neutral gas, which narrows (pinches) near the galactic plane. Around this pinch circles the Gould belt,perpendicular to the axis of the chimney (see pages7-8 http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0303516.pdf ) The stars in the Gould's Belt seem to be spiraling quickly around the chimney (leading to the conclusion here http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512567 "Our constructed proper rotation curve for the sample of young stars in the Gould Belt suggests that it's mass is substantial). From http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/homes/stein/E ... bai.Li.php get that they can see filamentary structure in the Gould Belt that can be explained by "dynamically dominant magnetic fields". Finally,remember that they found the Belt to be a "massive ring-like structure" http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/goulds-b.htm, So do we agree that the local chimney looks like a filament, and Goulds belt shows signs of being a magnetically dominated torus located right at (and perpendicular to)the pinch? If you agree, we can proceed to talk about what we see in stars and gas of Gould's Belt. We can help the mainstream solve the "paradox" that young stars in Gould's Belt seem to show a slower rotation than older stars (mentioned here http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512567) The mainstream is, of course, having a heck of a time accounting for how a ring of circling gas and stars,can stay intact,embedded in and inclined to the galactic plane. We know what is really happening
