High-energy Cosmic Rays

 

Cosmic Rays

 

The earth is being continually bombarded with cosmic rays from a great many sources within the universe.  These cosmic rays have a very broad range of energies.  We are fortunate here on the earth’s surface that these rays can seldom reach us because of the shielding effect of our atmosphere.  They are extremely energetic, and could readily cause severe damage to our bodies were we not continually being shielded by the atmosphere. Cosmic rays are known to be atomic nuclei—that is, they are the nucleus of atoms without any attached electrons (free nuclei).  Therefore, by our analysis of gravity at the atomic level, we would ascribe super-gravity to them.  That is, we would expect cosmic rays to be attracted to the earth’s gravitational field by a large degree.

 

Since cosmic rays have a net positive charge (because they consist solely of protons and neutrons), they are affected by the earth’s magnetic field.  Lower energy cosmic rays, in particular, are strongly influenced by the earth’s magnetic field.  Higher energy cosmic rays, however, are traveling at such high velocities that they tend to be little influenced by this magnetic field.

 

Suppose that cosmic rays were attracted to the earth by a gravitational force much larger than normally attributed to particles. If this were true, we would expect the distribution of cosmic ray arrival events to show a peak at the trailing edge of the earth as it moves around the sun, due to the “tail chase” phenomenon, as illustrated below.  That is, the combination of the motion of the earth around the sun, and cosmic rays being strongly attracted to the earth by an enhanced gravitational attraction, would cause cosmic ray arrivals to bunch up on the trailing edge of the earth.  And since the earth is rotating on its axis once every 24 hours, this means that a detector stationed somewhere near the equator would see a peak in cosmic ray activity once a day when it was pointed nearest the trailing edge of the earth.  

 

 

Illustration of the ‘tail-chase’ phenomenon. When a cosmic ray is attracted to the earth, and the earth is in motion, the cosmic rays will tend to bunch on the trailing edge of the earth’s trajectory.

And this peaking effect is exactly what is observed!  The figure below demonstrates this once-a-day peak   No other explanation has ever been put forth for this known phenomenon.

 

  

 Fourier analysis of cosmic ray arrival times at the Buckland Park, Australia cosmic ray detector array for the period 1986-89.  The dotted lines represent the RMS noise level present in the data.  The peak at 1440 minutes shows that there is a large increase in cosmic ray arrivals occurring once a day, at the same time of day. This is strong evidence of a ‘tail chase’ phenomenon, indicating that cosmic rays are drawn to the earth by its gravitational force. 

 

This figure illustrates the significant peak in cosmic ray intensity observed as a function of time.  This curve represents the analysis of three years worth of cosmic ray observations with a large cosmic ray detector array located in Australia, and is exactly what we would expect if cosmic rays were strongly attracted to the earth’s gravitational field.  This peak is not related to solar noon, and is not an indication that cosmic rays originate from the sun, And, the effect is most strongly evidenced in the high-energy cosmic rays.  This phenomenon gives strong support that the gravitational effects of an unshielded ‘free’ atomic nucleus are much greater than nuclei shielded by electrons.

 

More about Cosmic Rays

 

Cosmic rays arrive at the earth with an extensive range of energies.  Scientists measure the energy of cosmic rays in electron volts, or eV, the energy of a single electron.  But since the energies of cosmic rays are so intense, the measurements are very large.  Thus a cosmic ray with an energy of a million billion electron volts would be considered to have an energy of 10¹⁵eV, where the 15 represents how many zeros after 1 to multiply by, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 eV in this case.  There is a inverse relationship between the number of cosmic ray impacts on the earth and their energy.   There are 10²⁰ times more cosmic rays with energies of 10¹³eV reaching the earth than at energies of10²⁰eV.  The relative number of cosmic ray events is called flux.  At relatively low energies (eg. 10¹³ eV), the cosmic ray flux is high enough that instruments carried aloft by balloons or rockets will normally detect a number of cosmic ray events, so that their characteristics can be studied.  In this manner it has been established that most cosmic rays are atomic nuclei, primarily of hydrogen and helium at these energies, but with a scattering of nuclei of all types.

 

At higher energies, however, the flux of cosmic rays begins to diminish, (that is, they are observed less often), and the probability of encountering one during a brief balloon or rocket flight becomes too low to justify the mission cost.  So above the energy levels of about 10¹³ eV, ground detectors are used.

 

Ground detectors used for cosmic ray research do not detect cosmic rays directly.  Instead, most cosmic rays initially strike the protective covering of our atmosphere, where they break atmospheric atoms into various smaller particles, creating a “shower” of other particles which can be detected by large arrays of detectors.  Some arrays are designed to detect only the atmospheric fluorescence caused by these showers, and so are useful only on clear, moonless nights.  The results shown above are from the Adelaide University Buckland Park field, located 40 kilometers north of Adelaide, South Australia, and cover cosmic energy ranges from about 3 × 10¹³ eV to 3 × 10¹⁵ eV.

 

Scientists are continually searching for not only where cosmic rays come from, but also the mechanism by which they are accelerated to their very high energies.  For moderate energy cosmic rays such as observed at Buckland Park, they believe the source could be binary pulsars, neutron stars, or even the shock waves from supernovae.  But at the higher end of the energy spectrum—above about 10¹⁷ eV, explanations are not very satisfactory, and beyond energies of 10¹⁹ eV there are no satisfactory answers at all.

 

Since 1963 there have been 8 recorded instances of cosmic ray encounters with energies in the range of 10²⁰ eV—extremely rare events, although obviously more occurred that were not detected.  Recently two cosmic ray events registering an energies of 2 × 10²² eV were recorded.  To quote physicist James W. Cronin,

 

“These events are extraordinary, there is no credible model for their acceleration. Since they are not degraded in energy by the 2.7K cosmic background radiation, these events must have originated at distances less than 100Mpc from our galaxy. If, as is likely, these cosmic rays are extragalactic protons, they are not much deflected by the magnetic field and should point to their source.  No significant astrophysical sources lie close to their hypothesized trajectories. The existence of these high-energy rays is a puzzle, the solution of which will be the discovery of new fundamental physics or astrophysics.”

Now we can readily see what this “new fundamental physics” might be.  It might be, as we have hypothesized, that these “free” atomic nuclei, are attracted to the earth’s gravitational field by an amount not previously recognized.  That is, they are being accelerated toward earth by super-gravity to reach the improbable energies observed.  This is a strong argument in favor of the concept that free nuclei have more gravitational potential than non-free nuclei.

 

Nuclear Fusion

 

For twenty-five years, and with the expenditure of over $6 Billion in the United States alone, scientists have sought to generate energy from the fusion of atoms.  We know atoms contain tremendous amounts of energy, as proven by the atomic and hydrogen bombs. The atomic bomb obtains its energy from fission, or splitting of atoms.  The hydrogen bomb, which is much more powerful, uses nuclear fission as a trigger, but generates its much higher energy output by a fusion process. Fission is the splitting of atoms, while fusion is the combining of atoms. In either case, tremendous energy is released in the process.

 

Scientists have been trying to create useful energy by fusing together two atoms, creating a new atom of larger mass but releasing large amounts of energy in the process.  This is the same process thought to be the source of energy within the core of the sun.

 

The fusion process requires tremendous heat (millions of degrees) to create a plasma wherein electrons are stripped  from the nuclei of atoms.  This then allows the free nuclei to interact with other nuclei to create new and more massive atoms, giving off large amounts of energy in the process.

 

Since no vessel could have walls which could sustain the heat needed for the fusion process, scientists keep the super-heated plasma away from the walls by the use of an intensive magnetic field from a fusion reactor such as illustrated in figure 8-5.  The goal of these experiments is to ultimately generate more energy from the fusion process than is consumed in heating the plasma to the needed temperatures and to contain them in the powerful magnetic field of the reactor.

  

 

 

 

Illustration of a Tokamak fusion device. The coils contain extremely high-temperature plasma constrained by means of magnetic forces, in hopes that nuclear fusion will occur within the plasma, creating energy. This device is 30 meters high, as illustrated by the figure standing at the lower right. After over 25 years of effort, nuclear fusion has been sustainable for only a very short time. It is possible that once atomic nuclei are freed from their shell of protective electrons, they become super-gravitational and rapidly exit the plasma, thus shutting down the reactions. 

The problem is—they can’t make it work!  The longest sustained fusion reaction ever recorded is just a few seconds!  Twenty-five years of experiments, and still they can’t get more than a few seconds of power from a fusion reaction!  What’s wrong?

 

I believe the cause of the continued failure of the fusion experiments is because as nuclei of atoms lose their protective shield of electrons at the extremely high temperatures of these reactors, they become super-gravity objects and simply ‘fall’ out of the magnetic containment area.  In other words, the force of gravity on nuclei of atoms without a protective shell of electrons is far greater than the tremendous magnetic fields created to contain them!  Since these magnetic fields are very strong, the unattached nuclei must have an extremely strong gravitational field to overcome it.

 

Fusion reactors present a unique opportunity to test the super-gravity concept.  By placing extremely sensitive gravity meters in the vicinity of a fusion reactor during a fusion experiment, it might be possible to observe the momentary increase in gravitational force from the plasma.  Of course the effect would likely be very short-lived, since once the unattached nuclei exit the heated plasma they would almost immediately attract some electrons and cease to become super-gravitational.

 

If our concept is correct, it might be possible to redesign nuclear fusion reactors to work within the constraints super-gravity imposes.  This could ultimately lead to cheap, clean power for the future.  Let us hope I am correct.  In any event, the continued failure to obtain sustained fusion is strong evidence for the super-gravity theory of ‘free’ atomic nuclei.

 

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