Coherence structure of D1 scattering

The extensive literature on the physics of polarized scattering may give the impression that we have a solid theoretical foundation for the interpretation of spectro-polarimetric data. This theoretical framework has however not been sufficiently tested by experiments under controlled conditions. While the solar atmosphere may be viewed as a physics laboratory, the observed solar polarization depends on too many environmental factors that are beyond our control. The existence of a symmetric polarization peak at the center of the solar Na D1 line has remained an enigma for two decades, in spite of persistent efforts to explain it with available quantum theory. A decade ago a laboratory experiment was set up to determine whether this was a problem for solar physics or quantum physics. The experiment revealed a rich polarization structure of D1 scattering, although available quantum theory predicted null results. It has now finally been possible to formulate a well-defined and self-consistent extension of the theory of quantum scattering that can reproduce in great quantitative detail the main polarization structures that were found in the laboratory experiment. Here we give a brief overview of the new physical ingredients that were missing before. The extended theory reveals that multi-level atomic systems have a far richer coherence structure than previously believe

Nature of Dark Energy

When supernova observations in the end of the 1990s showed the cosmic expansion to be accelerating, it became necessary to reintroduce the cosmological constant Λ as a fitting parameter. Although its physical origin has remained a mystery, it has generally been interpreted as some kind of energy field referred to as “dark energy.” This interpretation however implies a cosmic coincidence problem because we happen to live at a time when dark energy becomes the dominant driver of the expansion. Here we present an alternative explanation: The Λ term is induced by a global boundary constraint that ties its value to the conformal age of the universe. The cosmic coincidence problem then goes away. We illustrate how the cosmological evolution that is implied by this constraint differs from standard cosmology. Without the use of any free parameters, the theory predicts a present value of Λ that is within 2σ from the value derived from CMB observations with the Planck satellite. The universe is found to be mildly inflationary throughout the entire radiation-dominated era. This obviates the need to postulate a hypothetical, violent grand unification theory (GUT) era inflation to explain the observed large-scale homogeneity and isotropy of the universe

Probability distribution functions for solar and stellar magnetic fields

ISSN:0074-1809ISSN:1743-921

Solar magnetic fields

ISSN:0250-6335ISSN:0973-775

Cosmological constant caused by observer-induced boundary condition

The evolution of the wave function in quantum mechanics is deterministic like that of classical waves. Only when we bring in observers the fundamentally different quantum reality emerges. Similarly the introduction of observers changes the nature of spacetime by causing a split between past and future, concepts that are not well defined in the observer-free world. The induced temporal boundary leads to a resonance condition for the oscillatory vacuum solutions of the metric in Euclidean time. It corresponds to an exponential de Sitter evolution in real time, which can be represented by a cosmological constant Lambda = 2 pi(2)/r(u)(2), where r(u) is the radius of the particle horizon at the epoch when the observer exists. For the present epoch we get a value of Lambda that agrees with the observed value within 2 sigma of the observational errors. This explanation resolves the cosmic coincidence problem. Our epoch in cosmic history does not herald the onset of an inflationary phase driven by some dark energy. We show that the observed accelerated expansion that is deduced from the redshifts is an 'edge effect' due to the observer-induced boundary and not representative of the intrinsic evolution. The new theory satisfies the BBN (Big Bang nucleosynthesis) and CMB (cosmic microwave background) observational constraints equally well as the concordance model of standard cosmology. There is no link between the dark energy and dark matter problems. Previous conclusions that dark matter is mainly non-baryonic are not affected.ISSN:2399-652