The sun as colliding beam, betatron cosmic ray factory

TL;DR

The paper reframes solar-system cosmic rays as products of a Sun-centered betatron accelerator, driven by the Parker solar wind’s longitudinal electric field and modulated by the Sun’s magnetic structure. It fuses a semi-quantitative Hamilton–Jacobi treatment of relativistic Kepler-like orbits with a combined electric-magnetic-gravitational bending formalism to argue that protons, nuclei, and even antiparticles can be captured, accelerated, and circulated to very high energies within the solar system. Leveraging ISS/AMS-02 data, it discusses how observed spectra, rigidity trends, and particle-type ratios could reflect solar acceleration dynamics, including potential injection from Jupiter and stochastic Alfven-zone crossings. The work also outlines a concrete experimental test (dual-AMS on opposite sides of an ISS-like platform) to discriminate solar-origin from extragalactic cosmic-ray sources, and provides a Markov/Hamilton–Jacobi framework to connect microphysical orbit dynamics with macroscopic energy spectra. If borne out, the solar betatron mechanism would have significant implications for understanding high-energy cosmic rays and the role of planetary–stellar magnetohydrodynamics in shaping the observed cosmic-ray milieu within the solar system.

Abstract

A theory of cosmic ray production within the solar system (not extra-galactic) is presented. The sun's time variable magnetic flux linkage makes the sun (as well, perhaps, as Jupiter) a natural, all-purpose, betatron storage ring, with semi-infinite acceptance aperture, capable of storing and accelerating counter-circulating, opposite-sign, colliding beams. The puzzle of how positrons and anti-protons can be well represented at all energies, is explained, initially, by the low energy capture of particles of either sign by the sun's magnetic dipole field. Later, as the magnetic field bending has become negligible compared to the gravitational bending, both positive and negative beams will have survived the gradual transition from predominantly magnetic to predominantly gravitational bending. Later, anti-particles produced in QED beam-beam collisions of sufficiently high energy, are also accelerated. The high quality of cosmic ray data collected over recent decades, at steadily increasing energies, especially by the International Space Station (ISS), make the study of cosmic ray production mechanisms both timely and essential. The paper describes how longitudinal electric fields, explained by the Parker solar wind theory can enable the sun to serve as a ``booster'' accelerator of cosmic rays, increasing the maximum cosmic ray energies enough to produce the observed 13 orders of magnitude maximum particle energy and the energy flux needed to maintain the observed cosmic ray atmosphere equilibrium within the solar system. A steady state mechanism is described, based on semi-quantitative discussion of a relativistic Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, according to which the highest energy cosmic rays observed can have been produced by the Parker longitudinal electric field component, during fractionally brief, but periodic, circular or semi-circular turns centered on the sun.

Figures (18)

• Figure 1: Selected topologies of particles falling toward the sun: Left: corkscrew-shaped orbit, "captured briefly" but then released; Center: grazing the sun; Right: falling into the sun.
• Figure 2: Top left: Magnetic dipole field pattern. Top right: Perspective view of dipole field pattern. 16 field lines are shown (actually +1, including the straight line from observer's view point). Bottom: 2025 image shows magnetic fields radiating from the sun's poles. Courtesy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Superimposed is the outline of the aperture of the sun as a betatron particle accelerator. Interpolated onto the photograph are outlines of a virtual vacuum chamber for the sun as particle accelerator. Also indicated, at approximately 10 times the sun's radius, is the Alfven radius, a reference radius that figures prominently in the sun's injection, acceleration, and extraction processes.
• Figure 3: Top: Copied and annotated figure from Owens and ForsytheOwens-Forsyth, showing magnetic field directions, along with added electric field directions. The electric field directions correspond to the Faraday's law electromotive force resulting from the 22 year period, time-varying axial solar magnetic flux. Bottom: Copied from the top figure, the local electric and magnetic field directions are shown, illustrating, for example, the magnetic field reversal across the heliocentric current sheet (HCS). This figure defines the Parker angle $\theta_P$ orienting the $B$-field lines relative to the effective radial magnetic field source and demonstrates its constancy."
• Figure 4: Figure copied with original caption from referenceCrammer-Alfven, showing, in particular, the radius of the Alfven surface, located at approximately 10 times the solar radius. Note: $\beta$ in this figure is not velocity as fraction of the speed of light.
• Figure 5: Figures copied from referenceAgular-AMS-p-e-pos-pbar, showing rigidity dependence (also known as momentum over charge dependence) and relative abundances of protons, electrons, positrons, and anti-protons measured by the AMS detector in the ISS, interpreted as four separated beams of protons, electrons and their anti-particle being accelerated by the sun, with superimposed gravitational and magnetic bending, and Parker electric field acceleration. For the asymptotic extrapolation, ${\rm Flux[db]} = -10\ {\rm log} 10^{3.3} = -33 {\rm\ db/dec}.$ The protons have become fully relativistic only above 10 GeV, while the electrons have become fully relativistic midway through the region labeled "semi-relativistic.