Does the Hubble Redshift Flip Photons and Gravitons?

Due to the Hubble redshift, photon energy, chiefly in the form of CMBR photons, is currently disappearing from the universe at the rate of nearly 10^55 erg s^-1. An ongoing problem in cosmology concerns the fate of this energy. In one interpretation it is irretrievably lost, i.e., energy is not conserved on the cosmic scale. Here we consider a different possibility which retains universal energy conservation. If gravitational energy is redshifted in the same manner as photons, then it can be shown that the cosmic redshift removes gravitational energy from space at about the same rate as photon energy. Treating gravitational potential energy conventionally as negative energy, it is proposed that the Hubble shift 'flips' positive energy (photons) to negative energy (gravitons) and vice versa. The lost photon energy would thus be directed towards gravitation, making gravitational energy wells more negative. Conversely, within astrophysical bodies of sufficient size, the flipping of gravitons to photons would give rise to a 'Hubble luminosity' of magnitude -UH, where U is the internal gravitational potential energy of the object and H the Hubble constant. Evidence of such an energy release is presented in bodies ranging from planets, white dwarfs and neutron stars to supermassive black holes and the visible universe.Comment: 18 pages, including 2 tables, one figur

Pulsating variables in NGC 3293, the open cluster with the most beta Cephei stars known

Contains fulltext : 36371.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)We carried out an extensive CCD photometry campaign of the open cluster NGC 3293 that contains eleven known beta Cephei stars. Preliminary results indicate that none of these is singly periodic. Several objects are among the most multiperiodic of these massive pulsators, giving us strong hope to perform precision asteroseismology in an open cluster for the first time. We also report a peculiar group of variables in NGC 3293 that is located near the low-luminosity end of the beta Cephei instability strip. The variability periods of these stars are too long for classical beta Cephei pulsation, but too short for binarity or rotational effects, or for SPB-type pulsation. In addition, we discovered about a dozen delta Scuti stars in the field

Asteroseismology in the young open cluster NGC 3293

Contains fulltext : 71993.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)2 p

PG 1605+072 in Wet XCov22: Support for the Multi Site Spectroscopic Telescope

The Multi-site spectroscopic telescope is a virtual instrument and the name of a collaboration that opens up a new observational window by combining continuous observations of spectroscopic variations and simultaneous photometric monitoring. This constitutes an enormous observational effort, but in return promises to finally provide access to a mode identification for and an asteroseismological analysis of the pulsating sdB star PG 1605+072. Multi-Site Spectroscopic Telescope observations for this object have been secured during a large coordinated campaign in May and June of the year 2002. The frequency resolution and coverage of the photometric time series has been noticeably enhanced by a significant contribution from the Whole Earth Telescope, which was used to observe PG 1605+072 as an alternate target during the WET XCov22 campaign, also conducted in May 2002. This paper briefly outlines the motivation for the MSST project and tries to give a first assessment of the overall quality of the data obtained, with a focus on the Whole Earth Telescope observations

Whole Earth Telescope observations of BPM 37093: a seismological test of crystallization theory in white dwarfs

BPM 37093 is the only hydrogen-atmosphere white dwarf currently known which has sufficient mass (~1.1 MO) to theoretically crystallize while still inside the ZZ Ceti instability strip (Teff ~ 12 000 K). As a consequence, this star represents our first opportunity to test crystallization theory directly. If the core is substantially crystallized, then the inner boundary for each pulsation mode will be located at the top of the solid core rather than at the center of the star, affecting mainly the average period spacing. This is distinct from the “mode trapping” caused by the stratified surface layers, which modifies the pulsation periods more selectively. In this paper we report on Whole Earth Telescope observations of BPM 37093 obtained in 1998 and 1999. Based on a simple analysis of the average period spacing we conclude that a large fraction of the total stellar mass is likely to be crystallized