Friday, 18 October 2013

the sun - What would the Sun be like if nuclear reactions could not proceed via quantum tunneling?

Short answer: Without tunnelling, stars like the Sun would never reach nuclear fusion temperatures; stars less massive than around $5M_{odot}$ would become "hydrogen white dwarfs" supported by electron degeneracy pressure. More massive objects would contract to around a tenth of a solar radius and commence nuclear fusion. They would be hotter than "normal" stars of a similar mass, but my best estimate is that they have similar luminosities. Thus it would not be possible to get a stable nuclear burning star with 1 solar luminosity. Stars of 1 solar luminosity could exist, but they would be on cooling tracks, much like brown dwarfs are in the real universe.



A very interesting hypothetical question. What would happen to a star if you "turned off" tunnelling. I think the answer to this is that the pre-main-sequence stage would become significantly longer. The star would continue to contract, releasing gravitational potential energy in the form of radiation and by heating the core of the star. The virial theorem tells us that the central temperature is roughly proportional to $M/R$ (mass/radius). So for a fixed mass, as the star contracts, its core gets hotter.



There are then (at least) two possibilities.



The core becomes hot enough for protons to overcome the Coulomb barrier and begin nuclear fusion. For this to happen, the protons need to get within about a nuclear radius of each other, let's say $10^{-15}$ m. The potential energy is
$e^2/(4pi epsilon_0 r) = 1.44$ MeV or $2.3times 10^{-13}$ J.



The protons in the core will have a mean kinetic energy of $3kT/2$, but some small fraction will have energies much higher than this according to a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Let's say (and this is a weak point in my calculation that I may need to revisit when I have more time) that fusion will take place when protons with energies of $10 kT$ exceed the Coulomb potential energy barrier. There will be a small numerical uncertainty on this, but because the reaction rate would be highly temperature sensitive it will not be an order of magnitude out. This means that fusion would not begin until the core temperature reached about $1.5 times 10^{9}$ K.



In the Sun, fusion happens at around $1.5times 10^7$ K, so the virial theorem result tells us that stars would need to contract by about a factor of 100 for this to happen.



Because the gravity and density of such a star would be much higher than the Sun, hydrostatic equlibrium would demand a very high pressure gradient, but the temperature gradient would be limited by convection, so there would need to be an extremely centrally concentrated core with a fluffy envelope. Working through some simple proportionalities I think that the luminosity would be almost unchanged (see luminosity-mass relation but consider how luminosity depends on radius at a fixed mass), but that means the temperature would have to be hotter by a factor of the square root of the radius contraction factor. However, this could be academic, since we need to consider the second possibility.



(2) As the star shrinks, the electrons become degenerate and contribute degeneracy pressure. This becomes important when the phase space occupied by each electron approaches $h^3$. There is a standard bit of bookwork, which I am not going to repeat here - you can find it something like "The Physics of Stars" by Phillips - which shows that degeneracy sets in when
$$frac{ 4pi mu_e}{3h^3}left(frac{6G Rmu m_e}{5}right)^{3/2} m_u^{5/2} M^{1/2} = 1,$$
where $mu_e$ is the number of mass units per electron, $mu$ is the number of mass units per particle, $m_e$ is the electron mass and $m_u$ is an atomic mass unit. If I've done my sums right this means for a hydrogen gas (let's assume) with $mu_e=1$ and $mu = 0.5$ that degeneracy sets in when
$$ left(frac{R}{R_{odot}}right) simeq 0.18 left(frac{M}{M_{odot}}right)^{-1/3}$$



In other words, when the star shrinks to the size of $sim$ Jupiter, its interior will be governed by electron degeneracy pressure, not by perfect gas pressure. The significance of this is that electron degeneracy pressure is only weakly dependent (or independent for a completely degenerate gas) on temperature. This means that the star can cool whilst only decreasing its radius very slightly. The central temperature would never reach the high temperatures required for nuclear burning and the "star" would become a hydrogen white dwarf with a final radius of a few hundredths of a solar radius (or a bit smaller for more massive stars).



The second possibility must be the fate of something the mass of the Sun. However, there is a cross-over point in mass where the first possibility becomes viable. To see this, we note that the radius at which degeneracy sets in depends on $M^{-1/3}$, but the radius the star needs to shrink to in order to begin nuclear burning is proportional to $M$. The cross-over takes place somewhere in the range 5-10 $M_{odot}$. So stars more massive than this could commence nuclear burning at radii of about a tenth of a solar radius, without their cores being degenerate. An interesting possibility is that at a few solar masses there should be a class of object that contracts sufficiently that nuclear ignition is reached when the core is substantially degenerate. This might lead to a runaway "hydrogen flash", depending on whether the temperature dependence of the reaction rate is extreme enough.



Best question of the year so far. I do hope that someone has run some simulations to test these ideas.



Edit: As a postscript it is of course anomalous to neglect a quantum effect like tunnelling, whilst at the same time relying on degeneracy pressure to support the star! If one were to neglect quantum effects entirely and allow a star like the Sun to collapse, then the end result would surely be a classical black hole.



A further point that would need further consideration is to what extent radiation pressure would offer support in stars that were smaller, but much hotter.

Wednesday, 16 October 2013

history - How was precision astrometry done before digital imaging?

Prior to digital imaging then photographic plate negatives were analysed with scanning microdensitometers to produce astrometric catalogues. Many of these catalogues are still in use today, they are valuable sources of early epoch positions that enable proper motion measurements.



For more details you could look at the descriptions of the SuperCosmos project http://ssa.roe.ac.uk// (which is based on Schmidt plates) or the UCAC4 catalogue, http://ad.usno.navy.mil/ucac/readme_u4v5, which uses plates to get positions and proper motions for faint stars.



In the good old days, before even these catalogues existed, astronomy groups would have copies of the whole Schmidt and Palomar sky surveys. You would put the relevant plate on a massive, concrete-based, hydraulic X,Y measuring machine, with a binocular microscope. You would measure sets of Standard stars, get a 6-coefficient fit to convert x and y into RA and Dec,then find your objects on the plate, measure x,y, calculate RA and Dec. Then snap a polaroid to use as a finder chart at the telescope.



I was doing this as late as 1995 before the advent of the Digitised Sky Survey.

Monday, 7 October 2013

the sun - If there are neutron stars, would most stars be considered "proton stars"?

Protium is a proton + an electron.



Under enormously high pressure, it's energetically favorable for electrons to merge with protons and become neutrons - see here.




are stars mostly protons




By mass, yes, at least before they get too old.



The mass of the universe is more complicated, but anything solid that we think of as matter is made of atoms, which are by mass, mostly protons and neutrons (you can break it up further than that if you like, but that's best for another question).



Most hydrogen has no neutrons so any hydrogen rich object (the sun, most young stars, gas giant planets) are by mass, mostly protons. That's no longer true when a star gets close to the end of it's life and has burned much of it's hydrogen.



Jupiter, by mass is roughly about 80% protons. The sun, because it's been turning hydrogen into helium for about 4.5 billion years, is roughly about 67% protons by mass. The Earth, mostly other elements, Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, etc, is a about 50% proton by mass.




Would stars like our Sun be considered "proton stars"?




I suppose you could use that term, but I don't see any benefit to it. It's not too different than calling the sun a "hydrogen" star. All stars start out as hydrogen stars.

Sunday, 6 October 2013

galaxy - Was the Milky Way ever a quasar?

A quasar is simply an active galactic nucleus (AGN) that is viewed from a particular angle; see the picture below, in which quasars are labeled "QSO". This is really a remarkable figure because historically all of the names in the figure were thought to correspond to different types of objects, when really they all refer to the same thing! AGN



Your question really shouldn't be "Was there ever a quasar in the Milky Way?", since the dotted line in the figure would correspond to the Galactic plane and we would not see Sagittarius A* (the Milky Way's super-massive black hole) from the correct angle. A better question might be, "Has Sagittarius (Sgr) A* ever been active?" The answer to that question is yes; according to this page it was probably active (very bright with a jet) about 10,000 years ago. However, at the moment, it isn't really doing anything, since it isn't currently accreting anything (to put it plainly, it isn't eating anything, so it doesn't have enough energy to be active). However, many astronomers (myself included!) are anxiously waiting for a cloud of gas called G2 to fall into Sgr A*. We are hoping that Sgr A* will burp or do something interesting.

Saturday, 5 October 2013

astrophysics - In what units to quote the thermal Blackbody temperature

Im not entirely sure what you mean, but the (planck's) formula for blackbody radiation is given by enter image description here



where h is in [J*s], c in [m/s], lambda in [m], k in [J/K] and T in [K].
So, the temperature is just in Kelvins, not in energy.
This formula, with these units, gives S in [W/m2/m], which describes the amount of energy per temperature and wavelength. There is no need to convert a given temperature to energy.



source

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

orbit - Does the Sun turn around a big star?


Does the Sun turn around a big star?




No. Such a star, if it existed, would easily be the brightest star in the sky. You would have been taught about it early on in school if it existed. But it doesn't.



For a while it was conjectured that the Sun had a small companion star to explain a perceived periodicity in mass extinction events. This too has been ruled out by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.




What are all the intermediate subsystems up to motion around the center of the Milky Way?




Our Sun, being a single star, is a bit of an oddity. Most stars are members of multiple star systems, typically pairs.



Some stars occur in clusters. The Pleiades is a relativity nearby (440 light years) cluster of stars. Someone with extremely keen eyesight and exceptionally good viewing conditions, might be able to see 14 stars of the over 3,000 stars that form this cluster. Open clusters such as the Pleiades don't last long. The stars in an open cluster are only weakly bound to the cluster and are eventually dispersed.



A key feature of the Milky Way is its spiral arms. Our Sun is currently in a lesser arm of the Milky Way, the Orion Arm. Stars however are not gravitationally bound to spiral arms. One widely used explanation of the spiral arms is that they are gravitational traffic jams in space.




We could also ask the same beyond...




Our galaxy is a member of the Local Group, which in turn is a member of the Virgo Supercluster, which in turn is a part of the Laniakea Supercluster. Even larger scale objects include galaxy filaments. And that's where the hierarchy ends. The expansion of space overtakes gravity at such immense distances.

Does gravity bend light, and how much time does it take for light to cross gravity of a Black Hole?

You are quite right: Einstein's theory says the curvature of space is locally deformed. The essence of this is captured in the spacetime 'metric', a mathematical tool that tells us what space looks like and, derived from this, what is meant by 'a straight path', which photons take. If there is no source of gravitation present, the path of a photon will be what you know intuitively as a straight line. However, for some mass concentration (e.g. a black hole, as you say), this path will be bended such that the mass concentration acts as a lens. This is immediately clear from this image from the CFHTLenS survey:



enter image description here



Crucially to your question I think, you must remember that photons do not experience time and their speed is equal to $c$, the speed of light. Photons are not unaffected by their movement through a gravitational field, mind you: but this shows up as a gravitational redshift (for a time-varying potential), rather than a time delay (other than the slightly elongated path, perhaps).



Besides that, the age of the Universe is typically not quite measured as you say, but rather through parameter estimation in e.g. the cosmic microwave background. The effect of gravitational lensing needs to be taken into account for that, but not in the way you presume.



Also, remember that an extreme gravitational field such as that of a black hole is relatively rare, and even if it did delay the photon for a 1000 years that is still a tiny fraction of the age we would, according to your way of thinking, infer; the photon would have to encounter a LOT of such black holes for this 'effect' (which does not occur) to have a huge impact.



As a general point, you seem to have some (Interstellar-induced?) misconceptions about the universe, but I think that's not for me to address here.