Monday, December 7, 2015

EDUPA: Astrophysical Jets




The Problem:
This particular unsolved problem in peculiar happenings of post-collapsed stars. Often associated with quasars and radio galaxies, these objects defy what we know about the final stages of a star's life. Essentially they are large "jets" of various plasma-state matter (I say matter here because there is still debate as to what is actually emitted) which will escape from the source at near the speed of light; these will carry large amounts of energy, but the physics behind them remains largely a mystery.

The Physics:


The physics in question here has a lot with the collapsing of late aged stars. In a similar manner to how we may not model late life stars, we are unable to effectively determine what would cause these streams to appear. The prevailing theories relate to the energy caused by the rotation of superdense objects in space, which may have an intrinsic magnetic field or angular momentum. There are currently no equations dictating the behavior of these objects, but we have a picture of them, and can explain that they could exist.

Why does it matter?
The ability to model this could have implications towards special relativity, matter and star composition, and of course orbital mechanics. This may also provide solutions to some of the other problems currently facing astrophysicists such as Gamma-Ray Bursts. It would also lead potentially to an insight into black holes.

Who is going to solve it?

There are currently many teams working on this problem from many different schools. Upon a quick search I found that there were papers publishing analyses recently. Most recently I found an article from an international team headed by an Italian observatory on a large gamma wave outflow from some deep point of the galaxy.

What I think:
The release point from a super dense object at some very close distance becomes enough to make the objects act in opposition to the force of gravity. Essentially, when you take the electroweak forces and collapse them to a singularity, there is an explosion of sub-sub-atomic particles. This causes the particles to break down to a further state, be able to escape the immense gravity caused by such a dense object, and reform on their way out of the object. The quantum mechanical principles on which these particles act might work to dictate the polar nature of these jets. The recombination principle could explain both their relativistic nature and their obscured nature. The polarity might also be explained by which particles combine to allow for escape speeds. There might also be other things escaping, but by reforming they take on a mass which cannot escape a black hole's gravity. 

1 comment:

  1. 3 points. More references would have been better, as I didn't fully understand what you were talking about.

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