Evolution of the Plasma Universe: I. Double Radio Galaxies, Quasars, and Extragalactic Jets

Abstract

Abstract-Cosmic plasma physics and our concept of the universe is in a state of rapid revision. This change started with in-situ measurements of plasmas in Earth's ionosphere, cometary atmospheres, and planetary magnetospheres; the translation of knowledge from laboratory experiments to astrophysical phenomena; discoveries of helical and filamentary plasma structures in the Galaxy and double radio sources; and the particle simulation of plasmas not accessible to in-situ measurement. Because of these, Birkeland (field-aligned) currents, double layers, and magnetic-field-aligned electric fields are now known to be far more important to the evolution of space plasma, including the acceleration of charged particles to high energies, than previously thought. This paper and its sequel investigate the observational evidence for a plasma universe threaded by Birkeland currents or filaments. This model of the universe was inspired by the advent of threedimensional fully electromagnetic particle simulations and their application to the study of laboratory z pinches. This study resulted in totally unexpected phenomena in the data post-processed from the simulation particle, field, and history dumps. In particular, when the simulation parameters were scaled to galactic dimensions, the interaction between pinched filaments led to synchrotron radiation whose emission properties were found to share the following characteristics with double radio galaxies and quasars: power magnitude, isophotal morphology, spectra, brightness along source, polarization, and jets. The evolution of these pinched synchrotron emitting plasmas to elliptical, peculiar, and spiral galaxies by continuing the simulation run is addressed in a sequel paper.

The physics of fast Z pinches

“…This viewpoint was presented by Trubnikov (1 990). The arguments pointing out at the presence of the currents up to 1019 A in the galactic environment were presented by Peratt (1986Peratt ( , 1990. cm (Yusef-Zadeh et al, 1984).…”

Recent results from studies of electron beam phenomena in space plasmas

“…As charged particles tend to flow in force-free directions, currents tend to be magnetic field-aligned in which case they are often called "Birkeland" currents after Professor Birkeland who first suggested such currents flow in the Earth's magnetosphere (Egeland and Leer, 1986). Their existence is now firmly established and it has been found that they are intimately connected to "inverted V" events, the generation of aurora, and the generation of electromagnetic radiation in the range from a few Hertz to many megahertz It is also thought that Birkeland currents are of importance throughout the Universe on a variety of scales up to galactic scales (Faelthammar, 1986;Peratt, 1986Peratt, ,1988Peratt, ,1990. It is therefore not surprising that the scientific community has shown considerable interest in performing space experiments which involve the ejection of electron beams and the formation of artificially generated currents.…”

Evolution of the Plasma Universe: II. The Formation of Systems of Galaxies

“…INTRODUCTION T HE evolution of cosmic plasma from a filamentary state to the development of double radio sources and quasars was investigated in the first part to this sequel paper (Paper I) [1]. The time frame of this study, based upon scaling simulation parameters to galactic dimensions, spanned some 108_109 years.…”

“…The basic model of the plasma universe, inspired by the observation that most cosmic plasmas are filamentary in structure [6], consists of studying the interaction between current-conducting galactic-dimensioned plasma filaments aligned along magnetic field lines (Birkeland currents, [1]). Although the entire filamental circuit is expected to be hundreds of megaparsecs in length and is probably no less complex than the magnetospheric current distribution near Earth, only a fraction of the circuit is simulated.…”

“…The transition of two interacting Birkeland currents of galactic dimensions [1] into the morphology of a spiral galaxy is best seen in time-lapse photography (16-mm films) from the long-time simulation runs. The reason for this is the rapidity with which the spiral is formed once the distance between interacting plasmas has closed to the order of a filament radii.…”