What is Dipole Gravity and What It isn’t?

In a recent communication with a prominent astrophysicist, I noticed that there is a general misconception about the theory of dipole gravity. Somehow people seem to think dipole gravity is some kind of a modification of general relativity.

This is far from the truth. Dipole gravity is not a modification of general relativity. Although it may sound bizarre, the general relativistic gravitational field both the inside and out of a rotating spherical source has never been fully worked out. In Newtonian gravity, the gravitational field inside a spherical shell is zero. However, due to the equivalence principle, general relativity predicts that there will be an induced gravity field due the constant acceleration of the mass resulted by the rotational motion of the object.

Because of the enormous complexity of the integral calculation, the only known solution to this problem was available only at the close distance from the center of the sphere which has been worked out by Lense and Thirring in 1918. In their original paper, they found the general relativistic gravity force close to the center of the rotating spherical shell which was given by,


These forces have been known as Lense-Thirring force. The x and y component of the force shows the radially outgoing structure which has contributed to the notion that it is a manifestation of the centrifugal force in accordance with Mach’s principle.

However, the presence of the attractive harmonic z component of the force was enigmatic from the beginning. There are historical records showing that Thirring had correspondences with Einstein in several occasions regarding this problem. Obviously, it baffled Thirring as much as Einstein.

It must be emphasized that the above expression is valid only for small x, y, z which is very close to the center of the rotating spherical shell. In other areas beyond the center of the sphere, the integral calculation is simply impossible. This form of the force ceases to have any meaning as soon as the distance from the center increases beyond the closest proximity. And the known solution to the linearized theory of general relativity has stated that the rotating spherical mass does not have a meaningful dipole term, which is true only in the very far distances. So this problem has been left out as an open question in general relativity since its birth.

The conventionally known "gravitomagnetism", which is a modified version of Maxwell's equation, was one of the desperate attempts to understand the extension of the Lense-Thirring force and the acceleration induced gravity effect beyond the limit of the proximity to the center of the rotating source. Needless to say, there is no mention of the derivation of the Lense-Thirring force or any form close to it, from this formulation at the distance close to the center of the sphere.

There simply was no known general relativistic solution in the intermediate area away from the center to the relatively close distance from the surface of the rotating spherical source.

This means that the general relativistic gravity field induced by the rotational motion of a spherical object has never been fully understood to include the entire space beyond the close proximity to the center.

What the theory of dipole gravity has accomplished is that it calculated and showed the compact mathematical form describing all the details of the field inside and out of the rotating spherical source. This was achieved by dividing the sphere into two sectors of the hemispheres, and by calculating the fields individually and adding them together, which is possible because the potential function is a scalar quantity.

The field close to the center calculated from this method produced the Lense-Thirring force of the form,


Several points can be noticed.

1. Both forms have the same sign correlations, eg, the radial and the axial component of the forces have the opposite sign with respect to each other.

2. They have the equal functional form as second order differential equations.

3. There is a uniform difference of a constant factor 2/15 between the two expressions.

4. The form derived from dipole gravity has the missing velocity dependent component of the force.

In the theory of dipole gravity, it has been specifically pointed out that only the diagonal component of the metric tensor is considered. The velocity dependent force can be added later without the loss of generality.

The difference of the constant factor by 2/15 may be explained by considering the fact that the center of the sphere is close to the centers of the two separate hemispheres. The centers of the two hemispheres are singularity points where the dipole field becomes infinity(which is a mathematical artifact) and the field close to the center of the hemispheres within the range of R/2 will not be accurate(larger than actually it is), which explains the discrepancy. This problem can easily be fixed by introducing a form factor etha.


Now, the total potential without singularity can be written



However, this was not the end of the story. The further surprising irony was that the signs of the Lense-Thirring forces are all reversed as later found out. Once the Lense-Thirring force is identified as the residual force from the two oppositely superposed long ranged dipole fields within the rotating spherical shell, the continuity of the force lines all around the space becomes an important issue.

Since we are aware of the jets and the dark matter problems in cosmology, the conventionally known signs of the Lense-Thirring force become very problematic. The repulsive radial force is not consistent with the dark matter problem any more than the attractive axial component of the force with the jets. Dark matter problems will be solved easily if the radial component of the force were attractive and the jets would be explained easily if the axial component of the force were repulsive.

In fact, the original formulation from dipole gravity showed the reversed signs for the Lense-Thirring force. However, since there was no compelling reason to doubt the correctness of the signs of the 90 year old formula, before applying the force to the actual cosmological problems, the result was simply adjusted to conform to the known results. Even the jet problem seemed all right with the original signs of Lense-Thirring configuration.

It was only with the dark matter problems that the signs of the Lense-Thirring force looked awfully awkward. One can not have the accretion phenomenon with the repulsive radial force, let alone the fast rotating spiral form of the galaxy. And the jet phenomenon seemed more easily explainable with the corrected signs of the Lense-Thirring force.

The necessary presence of the dark matter halo which is an absolute requirement for the explanation of the flat rotation curves within dipole gravity and also in dark matter hypothesis was the final nail on the coffin of the original signs of the Lense-Thirring force. It simply can’t be the other way around. The matters ejected by the jets have to come back to the equatorial plane and eventually to the galactic center to be recycled. The force lines depicted by the corrected Lense-Thirring force matched perfectly with this picture. If the original signs of the Lense-Thirring force were correct, matters will be ejected radially from the equatorial center to the plane and come back to the both poles which is against all odds.

More specifically, if this is the case, since the direction of the dipole gravity force lines and the Newtonian gravity force lines are in the same direction at the both poles, that are attractive, there will be no jets visible, because the accompanying two forces lines do not allow the debris to collide among themselves.

The dark matters are basically the debris in space in transit following this dipole gravity force lines.

Einstein was inspired by Mach's view of the universe and of the origin of the centrifugal force when he formalized general relativity. Naturally he expected that his theory of gravity should reflect Mach's point of view. The Lense-Thirring force was at the right spot and at the right moment. In his mind and that of Lense-Thirring's, there was no doubt that the force they derived from the second order effect of gravity was the manifestation and proof of Mach's principle. But how many times in the history of physics, people are inspired by something and discover something else totally new. But in general, I think, there is a general tendency of a bias when people strongly expect something to come out of their research activities.

Now, it is clear that the total general relativistic gravity field including the Newtonian gravity can be written
for a rotating hemispherical source. In a multiply connected dipole configuration, the second term will be represented by sums of all the existing dipoles in the system. For an example, the dipole field from a rotating sphere has to be a sum of the two oppositely connected dipoles within the source.

Any cosmological problems involving a rotating source will need this formulation to accurately describe the mechanics of the system just like we use Newtonian gravity to describe the non-rotating(very slowly rotating) stellar configurations.

It is not surprising at all that one has to make all kinds of extra assumptions to account for the baffling problems in cosmology, when this second order dipole gravity term was not present, even to the degree that the whole Newtonian mechanics has to be modified, let alone the plasma and the magnetic field for the jet phenomenon.

The correct order of the approach to solve the problem would be to apply this dipole gravity for the jets and the dark matter problems first and if it still doesn't work then use any additional tools to account for the further minute details.

In this regards, I noticed that the GPB data have been processed using the theoretical results derived from the conventional gravitomagnetism which is a wrong theory of gravity. The dipole gravity has the entirely different topological property compared to the theory derived from the modified Maxwell's equation. A rotating spherical mass has four distinctive poles instead of the two according to the dipole solution of general relativity. So, if the GPB data don't fit the predictions, they have to suspect that it may not be because of the systematic experimental error but because of the incorrect theoretical assumptions.

I'm sure this is not the end of cosmology. I hope dipole gravity can inspire young minds and help them discover something much bigger than the surface it barely scratched. I also hope it becomes the beginning of the new era of the engineering of this new scientific concept for the future space adventure of the mankind.

What has inspired the whole concept of dipole gravity?

The King's Invisible Cloth

We have seen how the world of physics has changed suddenly in the early 20th century with the development of quantum mechanics and general relativity. In this process, we saw how Einstein played the major role even in the development of the quantum theory although he remained skeptical of the quantum mechanics. His willing acceptance of the radical concept by De Brogli prompted Schrodinger's equation which accelerated the development of quantum mechanics.

However, we are living in a world of much different than the early 20th century in a way much less flattering.

I think scientific research is like a job of a lonely artist. Even if people do not understand what you are doing, you have no choice but to keep on doing what you have been doing. The difference between the art and the science is that an ideal model of beauty represents the goal of an artist, while the ideal model of a grand logical consistency becomes the goal of a scientific research.

But it seems that we are living in a society where the fundamental science is in a total disregard of the rational approach. I think this may only mean that we are up against the brick wall for the next breakthrough in science. The field of cosmology has gone awry for a long time that the King's invisible cloth has become literally very beautiful. For an example, beyond the concept of dipole gravity that has been discussed extensively in this blog, I don't see why people can not overcome the barrier of the speed of the light limit. It was meant to be applied only for material particles. The meaning of the limit of the speed of light vanishes as soon as we are talking about the outside of the light cone particles.

There are more than a dozen of reasons that the neutrinos must be tachyons. On the other hand, there is only a couple of reasons that the neutrinos can not be tachyons.

Namely, "nothing can travel faster than the speed of light". And "quantum theory works without the tachyonic particles". In fact, the necessity of the renormalization in quantum theory should have been considered its fundamental logical deficiency.

However, it is obvious that the first reason is not even a valid one. It is merely an unsubstantiated unscientific dogma. All the experimental data so far have proven in favor of the fact that neutrinos must be tachyons.

In fact, what special relativity has shown us is that because of the difference in Galileo transformation (first order differential equation in time) and the inertial transformation of the Maxwell's(second order differential equation in time), in the process of unifying the transformation via Lorentz's scheme, the unexpected discovery has been made. That is the possible presence of the entirely different world of the faster than the speed of light travel by the tachyonic particles.

The speed of light barrier has merely played the role of a parametric boundary between the two entirely different physical worlds.

The economy created by this concept is enormous. It is mechanically transparent that these tachyonic particles are the original cause of the gravity as well as the quantum mechanics. The quantum mechanical uncertainly is due to this random nature of the background tachyonic particles hitting on quantum objects like electrons via the electroweak interaction which must be longer ranged and stronger than the elastic collision cross section, which may explain the enormous scale difference between the Plank constant and the gravitational constant. Since we have the same number density and the average speed of travel by the background tachyonic particles, what determines the strength of the Planck constant and the gravitational constant is the respective interaction cross sections. The unification of gravity and quantum theory is achieved by this mechanical concept not by a trick of a Lagrangian.

In a simple tachyonic mechanics exercise, one can calculate the result of a head on (billiard ball like) collision between an electron and a tachyonic particle. In this process, the tachyonic neutrinos lose energy but gains speed after the collision. And consequently the quantum electrons gain energy and speed. However, due to the random isotropic distribution of the background particles and their collisions, the average position and the speed of the quantum object remain unchanged yet the actual position and the speed will never be known. The probabilistic nature of the quantum theory comes out naturally from this picture.

The bounced off tachyons from the heavy matter creates Gaussian density distribution of a relative void of tachyonic neutrinos. The tachyonic vacuum is equivalent to a gravity center like a balloon in the air filled room tends to move toward the low pressured region. So the universe is filled with this low energy but much faster than the speed of light particle known as neutrinos which determines how the matter particles should behave in the universe. These low energy tachyonic neutrinos will have a very low(almost zero) inelastic cross section with the material particles.

So, not only they are not visible, but also they are not detectable.

The hadronic particles will have much higher elastic cross section with the tachyonic particles which contributes to their heavier mass.

Until we see clearly the King's invisible cloth is not there, there will be no progress of science in our life time.

Additional Long Range Gravity Force

One of the well known astrophysicists has stated that the theory of dipole gravity is confusing when it comes to the explanation of the relativistic jets. The theory itself is not difficult but what makes it confusing may be that the same terminology and similar concept has to be used to explain the mechanisms of the theory. One can not build a new house without demolishing the ragged old one at the same place. Largely this is in the minds of the people in the field than the actual physical construction. So, here is a more concise description of what it is.

The fundamental difference between the theory of dipole gravity and other astrophysical theories of the relativistic jets(plasma and magnetic field caused), MOND and the dark matter hypothesis is that, dipole gravity is a theory derived from the first principle. In fact, the jets and dark matter problem were not in immediate consideration when the theory of dipole gravity was conceived. Of course, the reason behind the perception of the need for such a theory has been constantly in the back ground because of the inadequacies of the physical mechanisms behind those theories.

It all started from the fundamental physical anomaly observed from the simple mechanical system of the rotating hemisphere when special relativity was incorporated into the calculation of the center of mass. Consider this, why and how the center of mass of a hemisphere changes when it is in rotational motion even when there is no external force(in the direction of the shift) applied to it. And why this is not the case for the rotating sphere?

Newtonian mechanics states that an object should be at rest unless an external force is applied in the direction of the motion. Being at rest by definition means that the effective center of mass is in the same position relative to the entire distribution of the matter in the universe.

If the mass increase effect of special relativity is the real physical phenomenon and not some kind of an illusion, one can not avoid this anomaly of the center of mass shift from a rotating hemispherical system. It is a very real physical effect and it fundamentally challenges the conventionally known mechanics. It can mean many things. The rotating hemisphere(longitudinal axially asymmetric object) somehow may experience an external force which causes the shift of the center of mass. But the fundamental mystery of this system is that the shift of the center of mass moves along with the object itself. So it is possible that the system may be in a perpetual mode of acceleration.

Not surprisingly, it didn't take long to find out that the same mechanical system has been totally neglected in general relativity as well. The hitherto abandoned dipole term in the linearized theory of general relativity starts to have the real meaning because such a shift can not be transformed away. It is a real physical effect that depends on the energy in the system.

If we have a dipole gravitational moment in the two mass pole model universe, it will certainly be in a perpetual mode of acceleration until it reaches to one of the poles. The paper basically describes the effect of this force, but the real point of the paper was that it has justified the reality of the dipole gravitational moment which is the source of the additional long range gravity force which we have been missing in the entire history of mankind.

Now it is natural that we have to apply this fundamental force derived from the first principle to the hitherto unsolved(satisfactorily) cosmological problems. First of all, according to the dipole gravity potential from a rotating spherical object, the jets from the rotating black holes or neutron stars are totally natural and not surprising at all.

During the process of the application of dipole gravity to the dark matter problem, it has become clear that the sign of the Lense-Thirring force can not be consistent with the accretion phenomenon because the radial component of the Lense-Thirring force is repulsive(outgoing). The accretion and the jets can not be separated, and when the signs of Lense-Thirring force are corrected, everything(jets, accretions and flat rotation curves) starts to make perfect sense. The point source nature of the jets basically creates the 1/r dependent dark matter density distribution which is required to explain the flat rotational velocity curves.

So, the real physical nature of the dark matter is that it is a group of a constantly moving debris(pretty much like comets and asteroids) in the spiral galaxy following the dipole gravity force lines(from the poles to the equatorial center) that resembles the two superposed gravitomagnets around the rotating ultra compact stellar object. Since the dipole gravity force line is divergent at the poles and around the galactic sphere until they come together at the central accretion plane, the ejected matters can not be visible while they are in transit until they reach the rotational plane where the massive collisions among the debris occurs and generates visible radiation. Therefore, the luminosity close to the galactic nuclei may represent the strength of the jets and the density of the matters being recycled and this could be used as a valid parameter for the prediction of the flat rotation curves as they did in MOND.

In fact, the sources of the asteroids that bombarded the planets which left so many scars on their surfaces in the solar system can be explained if we assume that this kind of dark matters are pervasive in our galaxy as well.

Self Evident Dipole Gravity

Dark Energy

Since the theory of dipole gravity has hinted that the gravity in general is a bulk effect rather than a quantum effect, the presence of the superluminal tachyonic particles in the background of the universe becomes a strongly favored concept.
One of the candidates of these particles are neutrinos which has been enforced by the fact that the measured mass squared value of the neutrinos has consistently been reported to be negative.

If neutrinos are also magnetic monopoles, the symmetry of EM is restored where the symmetry has been known to be broken by the fact that there is no isolated magnetic monopole detected in the universe. The concept is also strengthened by the fact that the electrons and antineutrinos are produced hand in hand when the neutrons are broken to pieces by beta decay.

The following consequence of this scenario is that the tachyonic magnetic monopoles, while traveling faster than the speed of light, will still exert forces among themselves in such a way that a certain part of the space is no more crowded than the other part of the universe. The net effect is the ever growing expansion of the universe.

The total energy content may be calculated by the number density of the tachyonic neutrinos in a volume of a cubic centimeter and the energy due to their mutual repulsive magnetic forces.

There can be questions on why there are more of the antineutrinos than the neutrinos in the universe. Where is this asymmetry coming from? It is possible that we are living in the universe where the configuration of the proton, electron, and the antineutrinos are predominant as the way we observe it, while there can be other universe right next to ours that is totally opposite of what we have. The universe next to us may have the negatively charged nucleus and the positrons orbiting the nuclei with the abundant neutrinos instead of the antineutrinos in its background of the universe.

Physicists like to look for symmetry, whenever there is a lack of symmetry in nature; we are suspicious of it and wonder why. Of course, dipole gravity was a part of an answer to such a quest because the rotating hemisphere breaks the symmetry of the center of mass from that of a rotating sphere by its anomalous relativistic shift.

I'm sure the superstring theorists are also in the same shoes in looking for the answer for the ultimate symmetry of the nature.

Accretion Disc

Within the Newtonian gravity only, it is hard to explain how the matter falls into the galactic nuclei without losing its angular momentum first. To explain this problem without invoking the additional long range gravity force, one has to introduce the friction and the hydrodynamic fluid equation as well as the concept of the plunge radius within which one has to assume that the matter falls into the nuclei without having the persistent rotational motion. In fact, the angular momentum is such a well conserved quantity that it is hard to get rid of it without a proper cause.

If we have an additional long range gravity force that depends on the function of 1/r^4 in the radial direction, the Virial theorem can not hold and the matter circling around the nuclei will not conserve the angular momentum and the orbit is not going to be closed.

The orbit of the matter circling around the galactic core with the additional long range dipole gravity force will become smaller and smaller with the increasing velocity until it plunges into the nuclei with a violent collision which may be the major cause of the observed gamma ray bursts. This also implies that the accretion debris is neither in a purely ionized plasma nor in the gaseous states.

By this way, the necessity of finding an alternative way to lose the angular momentum is totally unnecessary, let alone the assumption of the existence of the plunge radius. As discussed in the page black hole jet engine, the dipole gravity potential with its latitude angular dependency explains the mechanism on how the matter prefers to stay in the thin disk shaped region in the equatorial plane as well.

It is fundamentally caused by the lower dipole gravity potential formed around the equatorial plane due to the latitude angular dependency of the force. The heat of the material falling into the nuclei is caused by the continuous compressing force of dipole gravity toward the core of the galaxy, which is manifested by the attractive harmonic force of the (sign corrected) Lense-Thirring force at the center.

Within the entire picture of the spiral galaxies, the accretion disc is an integral part of the jets and the dark matter problem when dipole gravity is invoked for its explanation.

History of Gravitomagnetism

It has long been speculated and conjectured that there must be a magnetism like counter part in gravity like in the theory of electricity and magnetism. One of these lines of pursuit was the conventionally known as "gravitomagnetism", which is entirely different from the one presented here as dipole gravity & gravitomagnetism.

The traditional gravitomagnetism starts from the modification of Maxwell's equation to accommodate the known facts in gravity. For example, there is only one known charge(mass) and the force between them is attractive. This resulted in the equation,




where E represents the regular gravity, B the gravitomagnetic field and G the gravitational constant. The entire concept is based on the assumption that the constantly moving charge(mass) creates a gravitomagnetic field around its path like in the case of moving electric charges. However, this formulation didn't result in any new understanding of the gravitational phenomena.

A rotating toroidal ring was its basic model device to create a gravitomagnetic effect. However, a rotating metallic ring did not produce any new physical effect. It did not succeeed in deriving the Lense-Thirring force at the center of the rotating sphere. And it was not useful in solving the emerging mysteries of the universe. In retrospect, one can see that this conventional gravitomagnetism was heavily relied on Maxwell's equation than gravity effect itself. It is basically a Maxwell's equation with the single charges and the attractive force among themselves.

According to the concept of the equivalence principle, an accelerating frame is indistinguishable from the gravitational field itself. However, constantly moving electrons can create magnetic field around their path, which means that the modified Maxwell's equation will predict a gravitomagnetic effect from a constantly moving mass which is in direct disagreement with the equivalence principle.

We can only see it more clearly in the light of dipole gravity, how and why it went wrong. The first and crucial problem was that they tried to find the answer from the outside of general relativity which has been the most successful theory of gravity known today. And also, beyond the fact that the both forces are long range forces, there is little that is common between the two forces.

According to the theory of dipole gravity, accelerating mass in a rotating frame is not the complete condition to create a true gravitomagnetic effect. A rotating cylinder does not create the Lense-Thirring force, which has also been reported by Bass and Pirani. This fact itself already puts a major suspicion on the centrifugal interpretation of the Lense-Thirring force. A rotating sphere creates two opposite gravitomagnets which cancels out pretty good in the far distances.
The only way to create a net long range gravitomagnetic field is by the rotation of a longitudinal axially asymmetric object like a cone, hemisphere and etc.

Only in those cases, the rotational degree of freedom of motion is translated into the finite length element which forms the basis of the gravitational dipole moment.

Questions on the Validity of Blanford Znajek Mechanism on the Relativistic Jets

May 22, 2006

Astrophysicists Discover ‘Compact Jets’ From Neutron Star

By Kim McDonald and Linda Vu

Compact jets that shoot matter into space in a continuous stream at near the speed of light have long been assumed to be a unique feature of black holes. But these odd features of the universe may be more common than once thought.

Astrophysicists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently spotted one of these jets around a super-dense dead star, confirming for the first time that neutron stars as well as black holes can produce these fire-hose-like jets of matter. A paper detailing their surprising discovery appears in this week’s issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"For years, scientists suspected that something unique to black holes must be fueling the continuous compact jets because we only saw them coming from black hole systems,” said Simone Migliari, an astrophysicist at the University of California, San Diego’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences and the lead author of the paper. “Now that Spitzer has revealed a steady jet coming from a neutron star in an X-ray binary system, we know that the jets must be fueled by something that both systems share.”

A neutron star X-ray binary system occurs when a normal star orbits a dead star that is so dense all of its atoms have collapsed into neutrons, hence the name “neutron star.” The normal star circles the neutron star the same way Earth orbits the Sun.

Migliari and his colleagues from four institutions in the U.S. and Europe used Spitzer's super sensitive infrared eyes to study a jet in one such system called 4U 0614+091. In this system, the neutron star is more than 14 times the mass of its orbiting stellar companion.

“Our data show that the presence of an accretion disk and an intense gravitational field may be all we need to form and fuel a compact jet,” he said.

Typically, radio telescopes are the tool of choice for observing compact jets around black holes. At radio wavelengths, astronomers can isolate the jet from everything else in the system. However, because the compact jets of a neutron star can be more than 10 times fainter than those of a black hole, using a radio telescope to observe a neutron star's jet would take many hours of observations.

With Spitzer's supersensitive infrared eyes, Migliari's team detected 4U 0614+091's faint jet in minutes. The infrared telescope also helped astronomers infer details about the jet's geometry. System 4U 0614+091 is located approximately 10,000 light years away in the constellation Orion.

Other co-authors of the paper are John Tomsick of UCSD; Thomas Maccarone, Rob Fender and David Russell of the University of Southampton, UK; Elena Gallo of UC Santa Barbara; and Gijs Nelemans of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope and science operations for the mission are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology.


==================================================================================

Neutron Stars Join The Black Hole Jet Set
ScienceDaily (Jun. 28, 2007) — NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed an X-ray jet blasting away from a neutron star in a binary system. This discovery may help astronomers understand how neutron stars as well as black holes can generate powerful beams of relativistic particles.
________________________________________

The jet was found in Circinus X-1, a system where a neutron star is in orbit around a star several times the mass of the Sun, about 20,000 light years from Earth. A neutron star is an extremely dense remnant of an exploded star consisting of tightly packed neutrons.
Many jets have been found originating near black holes - both the supermassive and stellar-mass variety - but the Circinus X-1 jet is the first extended X-ray jet associated with a neutron star in a binary system. This detection shows that the unusual properties of black holes - such as presence of an event horizon and the lack of an actual surface - may not be required to form powerful jets.

"Gravity appears to be the key to creating these jets, not some trick of the event horizon," said Sebastian Heinz of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who led the study.

The discovery of this jet with Chandra also reveals how efficient neutron stars can be as cosmic power factories. Heinz and his colleagues estimate that a surprisingly high percentage of the energy available from material falling onto the neutron star is converted into powering the jet.
"In terms of energy efficiency across the Universe, this result shows that neutron stars are near the top of the list," said Norbert Schulz, a coauthor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. "This jet is almost as efficient as one from a black hole."
The Chandra results also help to explain the origin of diffuse lobes of radio emission previously detected around Circinus X-1. The team found the X-ray jets of high-energy particles are powerful enough to create and maintain these balloons of radio-emitting gas.
"We've seen enormous radio clouds around supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies," said Heinz. "What's unusual here is that this pocket-sized version, relatively speaking, is being powered by a neutron star, not a black hole."
The main evidence for the newly found jet comes in two extended features in the Chandra data. These two fingers of X-ray emission are separated by about 30 degrees and may represent the outer walls of a wide jet. When overlapped with radio images, these X-ray features, which are at least five light years from the neutron star, closely trace the outline of the radio jet.
Another interpretation is that these two features represent two separate, highly collimated jets produced at different times by a precessing neutron star. That is, the neutron star wobbles like a top as it spins and the jet fires at different angles at different times.
Jet precession is also consistent with radio observations taken at different times, which show varying orientation angles of the jet. If the precession scenario is correct, Circinus X-1 would possess one of the longest, narrowest jets found in X-ray binary systems to date, representing yet another way in which neutron stars can rival and even outdo their larger black hole relatives.
These results will appear in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.


Comment:

If Blanford-Znajek mechanism is the unique and correct mechanism to generate relativistic jets, it should also be able to explain the jets from the neutron stars as well. But it doesn't, which only means that the Blanfod-Znajek mechanism fails by its own weight contrary to what people in the field may believe. On the other hand, the first conspicuous feature of dipole gravity was the unquestionable jets from the rotating compact stellar objects.

In fact any theory that requires a strong magnetic field to explain the relativistic jets faces the same problem. It breaks down when there is no magnetic field involved in the jet phenomenon. Penrose's mechanism and William's extension of it are certainly in this category. Other than the Kerr metric itself, no one seems to be able to explain why the strong magnetic field has to be present around the black holes or around the rotating neutron stars.

Also, the observed jets seem to be symmetric in both poles. If the magnetic field and the plasma are responsible for the jets, one side of the jets has to be very long while the other side must be at least 1836 times shorter because the mass of a proton is 1836 times larger than that of an electron, since in both cases the force that is responsible for the jets must come from the electromagnetic interactions according to their theories. And the oppositely charged particles can not be ejected in the same direction due to the fundamental properties of the Maxwell's equation.

It has also been speculated that the positrons are created in equal numbers of the electrons in the jet emitting process. If this assumption is correct, one side of the jets will be totally made of the electrons and the other side will be of the positrons. They(the positrons and the electrons) can not travel in the same direction. And it will eventually create a gigantic electrostatic dipole along the direction of the jets and the shear amount of the electrostatic energy accumulated in the process will halt such a stream of particles in a matter of a second. Conventionally, the observed X-ray was explained as due to the annihilation of these pairs along their path, which must have been going on for billions of years.

In conclusion, regardless of what kind of numerical simulation is introduced, there is no way of going around these stumbling blocks of the fundamental electromagnetic physical principles. It is simply impossible to explain the observed jets using the magnetic field and plasma.