Confirmation of the theory behind the formation of planets, stars and black holes

The first laboratory investigation of the long-standing but never before confirmed theory of the puzzling formation of planets, stars and supermassive black holes by the spinning of surrounding matter has been produced in PPPL. This startling confirmation culminates more than 20 years of experimentation at PPPL, the national laboratory dedicated to the study of plasma sciences and fusion energy.

The mystery arises because matter orbiting a central body does not simply fall into it, due to the so-called conservation of angular momentum that keeps the planets and Saturn’s rings from falling out of their orbits. That’s because the outward centrifugal force counterbalances the inward pull of gravity on the orbiting matter. However, dust clouds are called plasmas accumulation discs that revolves around and collapses in it spiral stars Do this in defiance of conserving angular momentum.

solve the puzzle

The solution to this puzzle, a theory known as standard magnetic instability (SMRI), was first proposed in 1991 by then-University of Virginia theorists Stephen Balbus and John Hawley. They built on the fact that it is in the liquid that conducts electricity, whether the liquid is a plasma or liquid metalMagnetic fields act like springs that connect different sections of a fluid.

This allows the omnipresent Alfvén waves, named after Nobel Prize winner Hannes Alfvén, to create a force back and forth between the inertia of the eddy fluid and the quadrant magnetic fieldcausing angular momentum to transfer rapidly between the different sections of the disk.

SMRI theory says that this strong instability shifts the plasma toward a more stable configuration. This shift pushes the angular momentum of the orbital sustainer outward toward the edge of the disk, freeing the interiors from collapsing over millions of years into encircling celestial bodies, turning planets and stars into the night. This process has been numerically verified, but has not yet been experimentally or observationally demonstrated.

said physicist Yin Wang, lead author of two recent papers, one of them in September in Physical review letters (PRL) and a Nature Communications A paper published in August which details a joint experimental, numerical, and theoretical confirmation. Recent results produced on a new lab-developed MRI machine, Wang said, “succeeded in detecting the SMRI signature.” Co-authors on the papers are physicists Eric Gilson and Fatemeh Ebrahimi from PPPL.

‘great news’

“This is great news,” said Stephen Balbus, the developer of the theory. “Now being able to study this in the laboratory is a wonderful development, both for astrophysics and for the field of magnetohydrodynamics in general.

The MRI device, initially devised by physicists Hantao Ji of PPPL and Jeremy Goodman of Princeton University, both co-authors of these papers, consists of two concentric cylinders rotating at different speeds, creating a flow that simulates a vortex accretion disk. The experiment spun galinstan, a liquid metal alloy surrounded by a magnetic field. The covers that close the top and bottom of the cylinders rotate at an average speed, which contributes to the experimental effect.

The physicists are now planning new experimental and numerical studies to further characterize the reported SMRI. One study will test the critical external shift of angular momentum by measuring the rotational velocity of a liquid metal with magnetic field dimensions and the correlations between them.

“These studies will drive the emerging field of interdisciplinary laboratory astrophysics,” Wang said. “They show how astrophysics can be done in laboratories to help solve problems that space telescopes and satellite missions can’t tackle alone, which is quite an achievement for us.” laboratory Research.”