APPENDIX 8: Problems With Pulsars.On the basis of the behavior of pulsars, objections have been raised to the idea of the Zero Point Energy increasing over the lifetime of the universe, with a resulting decline in the speed of light and changes in other physical constants. Now millisecond pulsars are rotating very rapidly, almost at the limit of what any proposed neutron star pulsar model can allow. If the energy density of the ZPE has increased on a cosmological scale during the time that pulsar signals were in transit, then the speed of light has slowed in inverse proportion. Consequently, we are seeing these pulsar events in slow motion. This means that any proposed neutron star would rotate even more rapidly at the time of emission, and so fly apart because of the forces involved. Thus any change in the strength of the ZPE, and hence c, cannot have occurred or distant pulsars would not exist. But a pulsar recently discovered has the fastest rotation rate known, about 43,000 revolutions per minute. It is proving difficult to account for these data on any neutron star model, and this indicates that a new explanation for pulsars is needed. Scott has elaborated why neutron stars may not exist in reality [213]. So let us examine the data and the options available. It is usually accepted that pulsars are remnants of supernova explosions. But caution is needed as a recent study only listed 46 pulsar/supernova pairs from over 230 supernovas and 1300 pulsars. Yet it is standard modeling to assume that the supernova remnant is a rapidly spinning neutron star with a strong magnetic dipole off-set from the spin axis. The neutron star is assumed to send out a radio, light or X-ray signal that is aligned with the magnetic poles. Thus, as the star spins, observers receive pulses of electromagnetic radiation in the same way that a rotating lighthouse appears to send out pulses. These pulses are extremely rapid. As of January 2007, the most rapid pulses are those from PSR J1748-2246ad in a globular cluster called Terzan 5 located in the constellation of Sagittarius. This star sends out pulses 716 times per second or 42,960 pulses per minute. It has a companion star that orbits the pulsar once every 26 hours. It eclipses the pulsar for about 40% of the time, presumably because this companion is bloated. All told, 33 pulsars have been detected in this cluster, most of them millisecond pulsars. Orbital companions are observed around millisecond pulsars in about 80% of those studied, while for normal pulsars this drops to about 1%. Currently, about 7% of all known pulsars have companions, which include planets. For example PSR B1257+12 is a 6.2 millisecond pulsar accompanied by at least two planets with masses approximating to that of the Earth. Scott has summarized three characteristics about these pulses. (1) The millisecond pulsars flash like a strobe light so that the duration of each output pulse is much shorter than the time between pulses. In fact, the duty cycle is typically about 5%. (2) Some individual pulses are quite variable in intensity. (3) The polarization of the pulse implies that the origin has a strong magnetic field. Scott shows that these characteristics are consistent with electric arc (lightning) interaction between two components [213]. In this respect, millisecond pulsars bear a similarity to the Jupiter-Io system. A stellar variation of this system as a mechanism for a pulsar is a distinct possibility, and the principles involved in such a system were outlined in 1995 by Healy and Peratt [214]. Healy and Peratt employed a plasma disk electromagnetically coupled to the magnetosphere via field-aligned currents to build up the electric charge. Variations on this theme of a unipolar inductor mechanism to build up electric charge appeared in 1998 for a white-dwarf/planet pair [215], and, around 2002, for a magnetic and non-magnetic white dwarf pair [216, 217]. Scott himself proposed a related mechanism in 2006 whereby two stars acting as capacitors, with plasma between them acting as a resistor, would build up voltage between them and then discharge in the same way as a relaxation oscillator [218]. Thus, it is perfectly possible that pulsars are not rapidly spinning neutron stars, but rather stars with spinning plasma disks. These disks build up a potential difference via the magnetic field and then periodically discharge. In some cases a visible or invisible companion may be involved as well as the disk. The star’s spin rate is then independent of the rate of discharge.The objection to a varying ZPE is thereby removed by a better pulsar model. References [213] D.E. Scott, “The Electric Sky”, pp.176-177, Mikamar Publishing, 2006.
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