Cosmic Rays From A Mysterious, Nearby Object

[PraedSt]

I have no idea what this means, but I presume some of you would be interested.

Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic radiation Discovered

Cosmic Rays From A Mysterious, Nearby Object

The titles are slightly misleading. By 'nearby' they mean ~3,000 light years, and the location of the source has not been pin-pointed. Extract from the first article:

Researchers from the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) collaboration, led by scientists at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, published the results in the Nov. 20 issue of the journal Nature. The new results show an unexpected surplus of cosmic ray electrons at very high energy -- 300-800 billion electron volts -- that must come from a previously unidentified source or from the annihilation of very exotic theoretical particles used to explain dark matter.

"This electron excess cannot be explained by the standard model of cosmic ray origin," said John P. Wefel, ATIC project principal investigator and a professor at Louisiana State. "There must be another source relatively near us that is producing these additional particles."

According to the research, this source would need to be within about 3,000 light years of the sun. It could be an exotic object such as a pulsar, mini-quasar, supernova remnant or an intermediate mass black hole.

"Cosmic ray electrons lose energy during their journey through the galaxy," said Jim Adams, ATIC research lead at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "These losses increase with the energy of the electrons. At the energies measured by our instrument, these energy losses suppress the flow of particles from distant sources, which helps nearby sources stand out."

The scientists point out, however, that there are few such objects close to our solar system.

"These results may be the first indication of a very interesting object near our solar system waiting to be studied by other instruments," Wefel said.

[01101001]

And BA Blog: Something powerful lurks nearby:

[...] That’s pretty weird to think about.

It’s too early to speculate much about them. ATIC only detected the particles, but is not sensitive to direction. If a detector were used that could see where these cosmic rays were coming from, that would give a big clue to their origin. If they all come from one spot in space, for example, then we know it’s probably a black hole or pulsar. But if they come from everywhere, well, wouldn’t that be interesting?

[PraedSt]

That BA blog article explains it much better.

So- a point source would imply an object we know about already, whereas 'coming from everywhere' might imply dark matter- right? That's very cool.

[Jerry]

Whoooh Nellie!

The apparent excess is at an energy level, not a place? And the reason it has to be galactic is because we have a theory that says they can't get here from there?

That was the running hypothesis for decades, before it was more-or-less proven 'broad spectrum' CR's were not aligned with the galactic plain and therefore truly cosmic.

Now we have imaginary particles colliding in ways that release energy in ways that we cannot duplicate. These imaginary particles also require properties we cannot, or have not been able to study in the laboratory. This is not a "Mysterious Source of High-Energy Cosmic Radiation Discovered" but another rather untestable hypothesis.

The evidence is cool, the imagination of Dark Matter theories resourceful; but the science backing this claim is at best, weak. I have a LOT of trouble with extensions of theories that fail to meet expectations in many ways (such as the many futile searches for gravitational waves) parking power rays right at our own doorstep: When astronauts leave the protective confines of our own atmosphere, their brains are riddled with cosmic zapping. If this is Dark Matter colliding with Dark Matter, shouldn't we detect occasional extremely high energy events in our massive, sensitive neutrino detectors? Did I just lose another brain cell?

[borman]

Preoccupied with a paradigm

Some theorists are finding the recent results exciting with respect to the possibility of Dark Matter Particles of a particular energy self destructing.

This involves accepting some a priori assumptions that form the basis of the paradigm. The outlook is from the vantage point that the particles are sourced at a particular place and lose energy as they arrive to our detectors.

A couple recent arxiv submissions on the topic within the popular paradigm:

Decaying Hidden Gauge Boson and the PAMELA and ATIC/PPB-BETS Anomalies
Abstract: http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3357

Distinguishing Between Dark Matter and Pulsar Origins of the ATIC Electron Spectrum With Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes

Abstract: http://arxiv.org/abs/0811.3362

As and example of an alternative paradigm to arrive at the particular spike of energy range could be that the electrons are sourced from a variety of indefinite places, from nearby and far away pulsars for example and accepting that the distant electrons would still lose energy according to current theories, But then find a galactic accelerator that kicks them back up to the observed energy distribution. Different galaxies will have different peaks. Whether the acceleration is electromagnetic or gravitational, possibly due to the strength of the Dark Matter Effect within a galaxy, could be sorted out by comparing the masses of the effects between electrons, positrons, and protons. If it is blind to charge to mass ratios, this may implicate gravitational or gravity-like forces.

[Jens]

I can't wait until somebody asks if the source might not be Planet X.

[PraedSt]

My bad.

No worries. You've done nothing wrong. Mr Weor has.
Seriously, if you want to persuade us he's correct- take it to ATM- we'll only be willing to listen. But be prepared to get shouted at.

Whoooh Nellie!

Preoccupied with a paradigm

Ok, interesting theories here. But how about we give them a chance to locate the source, before we change all our current models?

[ToSeek]

Posts relating to the "rings of Acloyne" hypothesis that Elitecamper is advocating have been moved here.

[trinitree88]

I think the new pulsar wind model with dome and equatorial emission looks like a good candidate for the high velocity electrons. Nice job here by F. Curtis Michel :http://www.capca.ucalgary.ca/meeting...lks/michel.pdf




pete....might be from a nearby pulsar, such as Geminga, or...see:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...f2bee2a66c259f



see: J0108-1431 in Wiki's pulsar section...~ 200 light-years...See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar

[PraedSt]

I think the new pulsar wind model with dome and equatorial emission looks like a good candidate for the high velocity electrons. Nice job here by F. Curtis Michel :http://www.capca.ucalgary.ca/meeting...lks/michel.pdf

see: J0108-1431 in Wiki's pulsar section...~ 200 light-years...See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar

I'm finding that there could be hundreds and thousands of pulsars in our Galaxy. Is this true? All 'dim' pulsars though. Hmm.

[novaderrik]

I can't wait until somebody asks if the source might not be Planet X.

nah.. that's just silly.
it was probably just an alien ship going into hyperspace or something mundane like that.

[loglo]

I'm finding that there could be hundreds and thousands of pulsars in our Galaxy. Is this true? All 'dim' pulsars though. Hmm.

That sounds about right. From McLaughlin et al 2005:-

Assuming that the total Galactic population of active radio pulsars is of order 10^5 (e.g. ref. 15), this discovery increases the current Galactic population estimates by at least several times.

"This discovery" refers to Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) which appear to be old pulsars with long periods (>>4s) and have been linked to DINS.

[borman]

Not all neutron stars are pulsars.

[PraedSt]

That sounds about right. From McLaughlin et al 2005:-
"This discovery" refers to Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs) which appear to be old pulsars with long periods (>>4s) and have been linked to DINS.

I'll have a look at that, thanks loglo.

Not all neutron stars are pulsars.

But most are, no? Anyway...one step at a time please! This is all a bit above my head...

[some dumb kid]

i am confused did this just this start out of the blue or has it been happening for while and we just detected it for the first time?

[Jerry]

No worries. You've done nothing wrong. Mr Weor has.
Seriously, if you want to persuade us he's correct- take it to ATM- we'll only be willing to listen. But be prepared to get shouted at.

Ok, interesting theories here. But how about we give them a chance to locate the source, before we change all our current models?

All we have now is an excess in a bandwidth that current theory says is too high to have traveled cosmic distances (If the rays were from outside our galaxy, they should have collided with the Cosmic Microwave Background.)

It is difficult to pin down sources, because the path of Cosmic Rays can be bent and twisted by electromagnetic fields.

[PraedSt]

i am confused did this just this start out of the blue or has it been happening for while and we just detected it for the first time?

I always end up scaring you, so I'll leave this for others.

[01101001]

i am confused did this just this start out of the blue or has it been happening for while and we just detected it for the first time?

How could we know? We just started detecting it, but can we say for sure it was happening before that?

But, most likely, odds-wise, it was happening for a long time. Now is not special except that you and I exist and that the tool was invented to detect this. It kinda makes sense that it was going on without our knowledge the day before, the week before, and 1000 years before. 10 billion years ago, I'm less confident about.

See Louisiana State University: Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) makes National News.

I don't undersand your confusion. What is to be confused about? Are there some contradictory facts you see?

[some dumb kid]

ok thanks. this whole thing is interesting, all i know about cosmic rays is that they contain protons and that they pound our planet daily. as for the object it could be a number of things, some sort of dark matter object, something mundane thats obscured by some thing else, or a cloked klingon bird of prey testing our defenses.

[PraedSt]

as for the object it could be a number of things, some sort of dark matter object, something mundane that's obscured by some thing else, or a cloaked klingon bird of prey testing our defences.

That's what I'm rooting for.

[A.DIM]

Is there any possibility this object could be a Brown Dwarf?

[some dumb kid]

Is there any possibility this object could be a Brown Dwarf?

OH NO ITS PLANET X

[PraedSt]

OH NO ITS PLANET X

What's this? Humour about Planet X? I do believe BAUT therapy may be working for you SDK.

[A.DIM]

Is there any possibility this object could be a Brown Dwarf?

Is this not a valid question?

If Radioactive Brown Dwarfs Are A New Class Of Pulsar where "It looks like brown dwarfs are the missing step between the radio emissions we see generated at Jupiter and those we observe from pulsars" why couldn't this be explained by such a body lurking nearby?

[borman]

Possibly a rogue stellar black hole is wandering within 3,000 light years.

It still needs to be confirmed that there is a specific direction or two that the rays are sourced. Also it needs to be checked if there is peculiar or proper motion associated with the source(s). Also, if a rogue black hole, whether the particles derive from a jet, as in a microquasar, or whether nearby cosmic rays that pass by its gravity well that already have hyperbolic velocity get a Delta V assist from a flyby anomaly to stand out from background levels.

Once a potential location is plotted, then astronomers can try to confirm a nearby rogue black hole by looking for independent clues such as microlensing and Shapiro time delays if it is close enough to show proper motion.

While I do not find this scenario very probable, I can't rule it out either.

[Van Rijn]

If Radioactive Brown Dwarfs Are A New Class Of Pulsar where "It looks like brown dwarfs are the missing step between the radio emissions we see generated at Jupiter and those we observe from pulsars" why couldn't this be explained by such a body lurking nearby?

How do you get from radio emissions to very high energy electrons?

[A.DIM]

How do you get from radio emissions to very high energy electrons?

I thought some radio emissions are caused by high energy electrons?

[Van Rijn]

Not an answer to my question.

[A.DIM]

Then please reword it; as it is I don't understand the question.

[Van Rijn]

The ATIC finding was an excess of extremely high energy electrons. You mentioned an article about brown dwarfs that does not discuss generation of such electrons. Rather, it discusses radio emissions much like those of, for instance, Jupiter. So, again: How do you get from radio emissions to very high energy electrons? What's the mechanism, for a brown dwarf, and where are your references for that mechanism?