What is the Explanation for the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation?

[wolram]

http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~heyl/ns2005/prospectus.html

Neutron Stars at the Crossroads of Fundamental Physics

I. Organizers

Jeremy Heyl – University of British Columbia
Vicky Kaspi – McGill University
Feryal Özel – University of Arizona
Krishna Rajagopal – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chris Thompson – University of Toronto, CITA
Marten van Kerkwijk – University of Toronto

II. Location: UBC – 9-13 August 2005

III. Objectives, Activities and Target Audience

A. A short overview of the subject area:

Neutron stars provide a laboratory to verify our understanding of nature at the extreme. The intense magnetic fields of neutron stars exceed those produced on Earth a billion-fold, and the densities and pressures dwarf the realm of Earth-bound matter by a factor of a trillion or more. Neutron stars provide a unique opportunity to extrapolate and verify our theories of matter, energy and their interaction.

 

[SpaceTiger]

By the way, I'll be at http://www.fcp05.vanderbilt.edu/ meeting the week after next. Seems I'll have to brush up on my particle physics...

 

[wolram]

I see they have a banquet laid on, oh for the high life

 

[SpaceTiger]

I see they have a banquet laid on, oh for the high life

Eh, I never pay for those. :tongue2:

 

[wolram]

All the best on your trip ST

 

[Nereid]

By the way, I'll be at http://www.fcp05.vanderbilt.edu/ meeting the week after next. Seems I'll have to brush up on my particle physics...

Cool!

If you get a chance to chat with Max (or Scott), ask him when he thinks the Year 2 WMAP results will be published (and what's holding them up, specifically?)!

If you get some 'skinny' on how AMANDA is doing (and when we might see some astrophysics-related results) ...

Above all else, have a great time!

 

[SpaceTiger]

If you get a chance to chat with Max (or Scott), ask him when he thinks the Year 2 WMAP results will be published (and what's holding them up, specifically?)!

David says that "they're trying to get it right". There won't technically be a 2-year release, just a "second" release. They're still not sure when it will be.

 

[turbo]

David says that "they're trying to get it right". There won't technically be a 2-year release, just a "second" release. They're still not sure when it will be.

Hi, ST! Do you mean that we will see a "massaged" version of the first year release instead of directly comparable 2nd year? That would not be good. In my ZPE inertial/gravitational model, I expect that the anisotropies of WMAP₁ would not line up with the anisotropies of WMAP₂. I expect that the anisotropies result from redshift/blueshift in respect to our movements with respect to the reference frame of the ZPE field of the vacuum. They mirror the gross movement of our galaxy, the rotation of the galactic arm in which our solar system is embedded, the movement of our solar system through the galactic arm, and the movement of the Earth around Sol. I hope we get a directly-comparable 2nd year map at some point. It is important.

 

[PeteSF]

Can you use your model and the WMAP-1 data to make any specific predictions about WMAP-2 data?

 

[Chronos]

A 'massaged' version? I certainly hope not. That would not be good for any model. I can't resist asking, turbo, are you aware the first year data has been analyzed for, and no seasonal effects were found? - at least according to 'mainstream' researchers. References available upon request.

 

[Nereid]

Also, didn't the 'first release' include essentially all the data - both 'raw' and 'processed'? IOW, if you wanted to (and apparently some folk did), you could perform your own analyses on the raw data ...

 

[turbo]

A 'massaged' version? I certainly hope not. That would not be good for any model. I can't resist asking, turbo, are you aware the first year data has been analyzed for, and no seasonal effects were found? - at least according to 'mainstream' researchers. References available upon request.

There are anisoptropies on multiple levels (monopole, dipole, etc, you know the drill), and I just want to know if the anisotropies in WMAP₂ map against the sky with a 1-to-1 correspondence with those observed in WMAP₁. Because of the mysterious delay in the release of the year 2 data, I have become suspicious that the anisotropies do not overlay smoothly with year 1. If this is true, the CMB cannot be the echo of the Big Bang, and that would be Big News. It would also lay open the possibility that the temperature of the now-non-cosmological "Big Bang Echo" is actually the average temperature of the quantum vacuum fields. I know you're going to think I'm nuts (and you're not usually shy about telling me that), but this is where my ZPE model has led me. The release of WMAP₂ may provide a critical falsification to that ZPE model. After all, if our movements relative to the vacuum fields do not result in measurable effects, then the vacuum fields cannot be the semi-Machian reference frame that I believe them to be. I may be nuts, but at least my model makes a prediction (one of many actually) and can be falsified.

 

[Chronos]

There are anisoptropies on multiple levels (monopole, dipole, etc, you know the drill), and I just want to know if the anisotropies in WMAP₂ map against the sky with a 1-to-1 correspondence with those observed in WMAP₁. Because of the mysterious delay in the release of the year 2 data, I have become suspicious that the anisotropies do not overlay smoothly with year 1. If this is true, the CMB cannot be the echo of the Big Bang, and that would be Big News.

Thus far, the CMB anisotropies are a good fit to the inflation scenario. I agree the delay in releasing WMAP Y2 is frustrating. I suspect it is due to the enormous amount of data to process and funding cuts. It could also be as you suspect - inexplicable anomalies in the data. It could also be due to systematic errors, as the NASA project director has suggested. Anyways, I trust they will release both the raw and error corrected data. That is the usual procedure.

It would also lay open the possibility that the temperature of the now-non-cosmological "Big Bang Echo" is actually the average temperature of the quantum vacuum fields. I know you're going to think I'm nuts (and you're not usually shy about telling me that)

Perhaps, but a causal related explanation of how the average temperature of the quantum vacuum field is necessary. It is also necessary to explain how it has decreased over time. There are good observations that suggest a correlation between the CMB temperature and redshift.

... but this is where my ZPE model has led me. The release of WMAP₂ may provide a critical falsification to that ZPE model. After all, if our movements relative to the vacuum fields do not result in measurable effects, then the vacuum fields cannot be the semi-Machian reference frame that I believe them to be. I may be nuts, but at least my model makes a prediction (one of many actually) and can be falsified.

Quantify your predictions. It is not sufficient to say they will not precisely agree with existing models. I predict the Preakness will not finish according to the betting line. Do you see a problem if I claim the odds of them finishing in the actual order, after the race is over, are fantastically improbable? That is what Arp does, in my opinion.

 

[turbo]

Perhaps, but a causal related explanation of how the average temperature of the quantum vacuum field is necessary. It is also necessary to explain how it has decreased over time. There are good observations that suggest a correlation between the CMB temperature and redshift.

If there was no Big Bang, it is not necessary to explain how the CMB decreased over time. Remember that some pretty smart guys (including Einstein) modeled the Universe as Steady-State, until the idea of "redshift=expansion" gained supremacy.

The CMB is often cited as the "proof" of the Big Bang and the most important prediction of standard cosmology. However, many phycisists (including in the 19th C) calculate the temperature of "empty" space in a Steady State Universe, summing the contibutions of all distant sources:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:TBhyklOKzrMJ:www.apologeticspress.org/articles/26+gamow+CMB+prediction+%22steady+state%22&hl=en

This radiation, found in the form of microwaves, has been seized upon by proponents of the Big Bang Theory as proof of an initial catastrophic beginning—the “bang”—of our Universe. However, the temperature estimates of “space” were first published in 1896, even prior to George Gamow’s birth in 1904 (see Guillaume, 1896). C.E. Guillaume’s estimation was 5-6 K, and rather than blaming that temperature on some type of “Big Bang” explosion, he credited the stars belonging to our own galaxy.

...

Speaking of the CMB radiation, Joseph Silk referred to the results as “the cornerstone of Big Bang cosmology” (1992, p. 741). There can be no doubt that there exists a cosmic electromagnetic radiation on the microwave order, and that its temperature correlation is approximately 3 K (technically 2.728 K; see Harrison, 2000, p. 394). This fact is not in dispute—verifiable data have been compiled from the numerous experiments that have been conducted. As David Berlinski observed: “The cosmic hum is real enough, and so, too, is the fact that the universe is bathed in background radiation” (1998, p. 30). The ground data have been collected using the Caltech radio millimeter interferometer and the Owens Valley Array. Low-atmosphere instruments also have recorded CMB radiation using two balloon flights: MAXIMA (which, in 1998, flew at a height of approximately 24.5 miles for one night over Texas) and BOOMERANG (which, in 1998, flew at a height of around 23.5 miles for ten days over Antarctica), as well as from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) satellite missions by NASA [see Figure 4] (Peterson, 1990; Flam, 1992; Musser, 2000).

What is in dispute is the explanation for the phenomenon. The late Sir Arthur Eddington—in his book, The Internal Constitution of the Stars (1926)—already had provided an accurate explanation for this temperature found in space. In the book’s last chapter (“Diffuse Matter in Space”), he discussed the temperature in space. In Eddington’s estimation, this phenomenon was not due to some ancient explosion, but rather was simply the background radiation from all of the heat sources that occupy the Universe. He calculated the minimum temperature to which any particular body in space would cool, given the fact that such bodies constantly are immersed in the radiation of distant starlight. With no adjustable parameters, he obtained a value of 3.18 K (later refined to 2.8)—essentially the same as the observed “background” radiation that is known to exist today.

In 1933, German scientist Erhard Regener showed that the intensity of the radiation coming from the plane of the Milky Way was essentially the same as that coming from a plane normal to it. He obtained a value of 2.8 K, which he felt would be the temperature characteristic of intergalactic space (Regener, 1933). His prediction came more than thirty years before Penzias and Wilson’s discovery of the cosmic microwave background. The radiation that Big Bang theorists predicted was supposed to be much hotter than what was actually discovered. Gamow started his prediction at 5 K, and just a few years before Penzias and Wilson’s discovery, suggested that it should be 50 K (see Alpher and Herman, 1949; Gamow, 1961).

Quantify your predictions. It is not sufficient to say they will not precisely agree with existing models. I predict the Preakness will not finish according to the betting line. Do you see a problem if I claim the odds of them finishing in the actual order, after the race is over, are fantastically improbable? That is what Arp does, in my opinion.

If the anisotropies in WMAP₁ are relics of a VERY distant BB, they will be present in the same locations and at the same intensities in the WMAP₂ data. Even the very smallest anisotropies (when projected back 13Gy) subtend such huge areas of the universe, that they cannot possibly have conspired to change in the course of a year.

In my ZPE model, the ground state of the vacuum energy is such that the temperature of "empty" space can never be zero. Our movement relative to the vacuum field reference frame will cause us to sense a slight increase in the vacuum temperature in the direction of our movement. Such movements relative to the vacuum field include the motion of our galaxy (responsible for the large dipole anisotropy) the rotation of our galactic arm, the motion of the Sun through the galactic arm, and the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun. If I am right, anisotropies in WMAP₂ caused by the larger movements will agree in general with those of WMAP₁, but the anisotropies caused by the smaller movements (Earth around the Sun) will not overlay accurately. When the data is analyzed, these small anisotropies will be seen to be artifacts of the motion of the WMAP probe relative to the reference frame of the vacuum fields as it follows the Earth around the Sun in L2. An antenna facing in the direction of motion of the probe will see higher average temperatures than an antenna facing away from the direction of motion. If this is true, I hope that the WMAP team do not treat this effect as a "systematic error" that needs to be normalized out of the data.