I've suggested (& published in 21 journal papers) a new theory called quantised inertia (or MiHsC) that assumes that inertia is caused by horizons damping quantum fields. It predicts galaxy rotation & lab thrusts without any dark stuff or adjustment. My University webpage is here, I've written a book called Physics from the Edge and I'm on twitter as @memcculloch. Most of my content is at patreon now: here

Saturday 11 June 2016

A Smoking Gun in Every Galaxy

Why am I so confident that MiHsC / quantised inertia is right? There are as many reasons as there are pieces of data I've tested it on, a lot, but one particularly compelling reason is illustrated by the schematic below. It shows a typical disc galaxy. In the inner part, in yellow, the stars are always well-behaved and all orbit the galactic centre just as they should according to Newton (or general relativity), but in the outer orange part madness ensues as they orbit far too fast for Newton.



It was noticed by Milgrom (1983) that the transition yellow to orange always occurs at an orbital acceleration of 2x10^-10 m/s^2. This is also true by the way of globular clusters that dark matter cannot be applied to. The wavelength of Unruh radiation depends on acceleration (a) as follows: wavelength~8c^2/a. For stars in the yellow the orbital acceleration (a=v^2/r) is high, so the Unruh wavelength is short (shown by the bottom red sine wave). As you go radially outwards, the orbital acceleration drops, so the Unruh waves lengthen (see the second red wave from the bottom). Near the point where the stars start to misbehave the Unruh waves become as long as the Hubble scale (see the two upper red curves). Milgrom noticed this telling link between dynamics and cosmology but could not explain it in his MoND model (this critical acceleration has to be input by hand) and if you try the numbers: wavelength = 8c^2/(2x10^-10) = 36x10^26m you'll see the predicted Unruh wavelength is 14 times larger than the Hubble scale which is 2.6x10^26 m.

MiHsC specifically explains this dynamics-cosmology link: it predicts it! MiHsC says that the inertial mass of objects is caused when they accelerate and an information horizon forms damping Unruh radiation, making it vary in space, and so able to push to oppose the initial acceleration. However, only Unruh waves that fit exactly (resonate) within the Hubble horizon are allowed (those with nodes at the horizon, see the diagram). The logic is that partial waves would allow us to infer something outside the horizon (that part of the wave) which would defeat the purpose of the horizon. So, as the Unruh waves lengthen, a lesser proportion of them are allowed (it is rather like a Hubble-scale Casimir effect) so the outer stars' Unruh-radiation-induced inertial mass collapses, they feel less centrifugal force, and so they can orbit much faster without the galaxy exploding. In this way MiHsC predicts galaxy rotation, with no dark matter needed.

The fact that the Unruh wavelength stars see when they start to misbehave in galaxies is equal to the observed distance to the Hubble horizon, is a direct indication of MiHsC. A smoking gun in every galaxy. Something that the ad hoc dark matter hypothesis can never hope to achieve.

References

Milgrom, M., 1983. ApJ, 270, 365.

McCulloch, M.E., 2007. MNRAS, 376, 338-342. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612599

18 comments:

qraal said...

What's the effect on Galactic evolution? If it depends on the Hubble distance then it's different with look back time.

Eric Fithian said...

Without directly grasping the complexities of MiHsC, I suspect it also explains "Ring Galaxies," the most beautiful of which is Hoag's Object (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoag%27s_Object).
The Astronomical Establishment seems to have thrown up their hands, utterly failing to explain how such a thing could have formed. The fun thing is, there is *another* visible in the distance, between its core and ring....

On another tack, I had a thought:
To facilitate high-energy space travel, we have to dispose of a substantial amount of heat, which will be generated by our equipment (whatever the source of the energy); and that which will eventuate from the use of the EmDrive (or other).
Do you postulate any corollary of MiHsC which could function as a high-efficiency Heat Sink (exceeding the so-called Near-Absolute-Zero of interstellar space)?
Something like a Portable Black Hole into which one could dump all that heat would greatly enhance our capabilities.....

Mike McCulloch said...

qraal: Indeed MiHsC predicts a temporal change in the minimum acceleration of the cosmos, predicting a=2c^2/HubbleScale. So, HubbleScale being smaller in the past the minimum acceleration should have been larger (like ancient inflation). However, I'm now entertaining the idea that c might vary too, which complicates this.

Mike McCulloch said...

Eric: Hoag's object is interesting. I've just done the calculation taking the central core mass to be M<10^12 Solar masses (O'Connell et al., 1974) and a ring radius (half way thru it) of 4.5x10^20 m (same source) showing that the ring is at an acceleration of roughly < 6.6x10^-10 m/s^2, consistent with the 2c^2/HubbleScale (+/-9%) predicted by MiHsC (the mass though is very uncertain)...

Mike McCulloch said...

Eric: About a potential heat sink: there's something in MiHsC I call a squeezed horizon, wherein an acceleration shrinks the Rindler horizon erasing information and releasing Unruh-heat, some of which might leak out into our world. How about the opposite: if we could stretch a horizon (don't ask me how!) it might convert heat to information..? Intriguing line of inquiry.

Bud Haven said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike McCulloch said...

Bud: Yes, MiHsC does predict the creation of mass. If interested see my paper here: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4434/2/1/81

Bud Haven said...

Does MiHsC predict the creation of mass? (To keep the universe flat?) My understanding of Hawking radiation is that virtual partials at the its edge creates a matter-antimatter pair The matter is released to the exterior and the anti-matter partial combines with a particle on the interior. If the Rindler Horizon creates mass in a similar way that infers there is mass exterior to the Rindler horizon. If so, would this mass be mass that was between the Rindler and Hubble Horizons or could mass be transferred from even beyond the Hubble horizon?

Bud Haven said...

Sorry I'm always editing. Is mass created, or merely transferred?

Bud Haven said...

I read created. If Unrah radiation is a thing, then it seems that it would exhibit particle-wave duality. The bands of stars in galaxies that form what are called arms remind me of interference patterns.

Anonymous said...

Good site.

Zephir said...

/* I suspect it also explains "Ring Galaxies," the most beautiful of which is Hoag's Object */
The rings and shells of dark matter were already predicted/explained with MOND, so that the MiHsC theory shouldn't have problem with it too. The Hoag's object is unusual in the sense, it probably resulted from collision of two galaxies of quite different age: the one older and rich of dark matter, the second younger poor of dark matter. Therefore the distribution of star velocity inside the Hoag's object may not be easily predictable with both MOND, both MiHsC without more detailed knowledge about actual dark mass distribution.

Unknown said...

Any idea as to why Milgrom's "galactic transition acceleration" of 2E-10 m/s^2 equates out to an unruh wavelength 14x the Hubble scale and not just barely > 1x the Hubble scale (i.e. just barely too large to resonate within the Hubble bound)?

Migrom's value of 2E-10 m/s^2 is nicely close to MiHsC's criticla acceleration of 6.9E-10 m/s^2, but it seems Milgroms value SHOULD be closer to 2E-9 m/s^2.

Analytic D said...

@duane

With all the evidence of galactic rotation at different scales, if you are going to pick a critical point to adjust gravitational acceleration, any arbitrary point near the MiHsC prediction could be argued to be accurate, especially since the Unruh cutoff is mitigated by thermal effects of macroscopic bodies.

This is not a behavior that has been modeled explicitly with MiHsC yet, as far as I know, though Mike is aware of it and has said as a preliminary that thermal effects largely average out, though I think the Hubble horizon causes a difference between hot and cold objects near the critical acceleration. Podkletnov's tests with (cooled)superconducting rotating discs comes into the discussion here, but I'll leave it here.

Mike McCulloch said...

Duane: The 'simple' interpolation function of MoND was derived just by trying a function, specifically F=m(1/(1+(a0/a)))a, and then later an attempt was made to compare Unruh waves from it to the Hubble scale, but they didn't fit bcos it's just a guessed function (other functions can be used too, but none are exactly like MiHsC's).

In contrast MiHsC was derived directly from the exact fitting/resonance or not of Unruh waves into the Hubble scale (see my 2007 paper) and so its interpolation function was derived directly from a physical-cosmological model, and so it matches cosmology much better. For comparison, MiHsC's function is F=m(1-(am/a))a

The two models are similar mathematically for higher accelerations since 1/(1+(a0/a)) ~ 1-(a0/a) when a0/a<<1.

historypak said...

Excellent and very exciting site. Love to watch. Keep Rocking. bongs

rrichar911 said...

I don't think c is going to vary. The early universe expanded at a rather slow rate compared to inflation. Matter had not yet formed and thus the speed limit was c. To predict inflation when light began to form particles at the edge of the universe, they had no inertia / resistance to acceleration, thus the rate at which the universe expanded increased. Light in a bundle at the edge lost its speed limit and the universe expanded faster than an internal observer could see it expand. The observable universe can only expand at a maximum speed c Thus every observer sees his self at the center, the U expanding in all directions equally away from him. Thus observable horizons replace the actual edge when applying Mach's principle to compute inertia.

ED said...

Eric,

Your comment regarding heat transfer is interesting. Any power supply in space will generate heat losses. Given space background temperature is 2.75 Kelvin, if you design a proper heat sink to radiate this waste heat one should be able to produce mega-watts, more than enough to power your space ship. We should talk about a possible application like this. One can think of it as a simple Carnot heat engine. -e