Scharnhorst effect + EM field greater than the Schwinger limit =c value increase

#20 by Giovanni on 05 Jun, 2017 16:52
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separation simply won't happen unless energy is absorbed to allow it, making part of your reasoning circular.
Electrons and positrons are subject to field E regardless of their distance. Or would you imply that as electron and positron no longer form a dipole, they are not subject to an external field? It seems strange.

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I should have mentioned before that while an electron in free space cannot fully absorb a photon, it would typically scatter a photon, absorbing some energy from it, and effectively replacing the photon with a lower energy one travelling at a different angle. See Compton Scattering for the math.
Both before and after scattering should be valid the relationship: fλ = c₀
So by analyzing the properties of light emerging from this strong field region you can know c₀.
#21 by meberbs on 05 Jun, 2017 17:23
Quote from: Giovanni on 05 Jun, 2017 16:52
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separation simply won't happen unless energy is absorbed to allow it, making part of your reasoning circular.
Electrons and positrons are subject to field E regardless of their distance. Or would you imply that as electron and positron no longer form a dipole, they are not subject to an external field? It seems strange.
Your response is not what I am saying at all. Electrons on their own are obviously subject to external fields, and the energy to accelerate them must therefore come from the fields. Also, there is no point at which an electron and positron magically stop forming a dipole, although there is a point where virtual particles have enough energy to exist as real particles.

You seem to have separated "absorbing a photon" and "accelerated by the E field" as intrinsically separate events. In reality, these are different words for the same thing. Classical electrodynamics doesn't have the concept of photons, and QED which brings in the discrete nature is hard to explain because quantum is weird. If you aren't familiar with them, I can post the classical EM equations that can be used to show how energy and momentum would balance for an electron being accelerated by the E-field.[1] These are perfectly valid equations as long as you are operating in the regime of large numbers (avoid quantum and individual photons), which should be good for an electron in a strong, roughly uniform E-field.

[1]I would do it now, but don't have my textbook in front of me, and I haven't memorized them.
#22 by Giovanni on 05 Jun, 2017 20:14
So we have:
Photons interacting with the electron. (photon set E)
Photons interacting with positron. (photon set P)
Photons that have to go undisturbed. (photon set X)

The photons of the P and E sets break the dipoles and the X photons go undisturbed.
Why should not this be possible?
Note that the distance between photons X and the dipole at zero time is a free parameter: its value may be so large that the dipole is broken before the photons X can interact with it.

Anyway:
Suppose there is a distance D such that if the distance between the photons X and the dipole is greater than D, the dipole is broken in time and X passes undisturbed otherwise a photon of X is captured.

This distance will surely be a function of the field intensity mediated by the photons E and P. Because if this field is more intense then the dipole is first broken. Wea can choose an arbitrarly large field so we can choose a field such that D is very small.
Although the dipole appears near the X photon, it is broken before the photon reaches it.
#23 by meberbs on 05 Jun, 2017 22:00
I am not sure what the relation of this post is to your original points, or what your current point is. You also included a false dichotomy at the beginning (there are options you missed).

You refer to the dipole being "broken" when I just said that that doesn't make sense. When you talk about photons that don't interact with the electron did you forget what I mentioned earlier about Compton scattering?
#24 by Giovanni on 06 Jun, 2017 08:29
OK no problem. It is clearly your field so if you say it does not make sense then it makes no sense. Thank you for your patience and commitment to reading articles and giving me an informed opinion.
#25 by Giovanni on 21 Jul, 2017 04:09
I would not like to reopen the discussion but just add that the author of the text excluded the Compton effect from the model: paragraph 5 'The propagation of a photon in vacuum'
<<Also the interaction of a real photon with a pair must not exchange energy or momentum with the vacuum
(for instance, Compton scattering is not possible)>>
#26 by dustinthewind on 21 Jul, 2017 06:33
Quote from: Giovanni on 22 May, 2017 21:46
The research to overcome the speed of light has so far concentrated on bending space time in the appropriate ways: http://publicationslist.org/spacetimeshortcut

But this is not the only way: there is also the 'Scharnhorst effect'. Scharnhorst believed that the virtual pairs slowed down light and that, in certain circumstances, when, for example in the Casimir effect, in a space region there were less virtual pairs than normal, the value of c grew.

His demonstration uses only the maxwell equations and the quantum mechanics but is not complete in some way (I did not understand the technicalities in that regard) anyway what happens when in an area of space there is an electric field greater than the Schwinger limit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwinger_limit

Theoretically an electric field so intense separates the virtual pairs ... so, since the light is no longer restrained, the value of c increases?
(The wiki does not talk about the possibility of separating virtual pairs with an electric field greater than the Schwinger limit. You will find everything here: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/16/science/scientists-use-light-to-create-particles.html)

Schwinger's limit is not yet reachable experimentally, but in a few decades they expect it to become .... so whoever will live will see it.
What do you think?

Its interesting to think that the density of virtual pairs could influence the speed of light. It does make sense when compared to an increased index material where matter density increases.

I was pondering if matter attracts virtual pairs because of the charge, then the density of virtual pairs would be greater near matter. Let us suppose energy attempts to equalize but in doing so neglects evenly distributing energy to higher density regions. An example might be to assume we can not reach absolute zero in the vacuum because thermal radiation permeates the vacuum. This thermal radiation may be able to distribute it self evenly over the vacuum and excite the virtual pairs into existence. However virtual pairs are clustered around matter so this means less energy per virtual particle. Matter existing in this dance of virtual pairs and experiencing this gradient in energy per virtual particle may experience a force.

Does the far distant universe appear to be more red-shifted because early on there was less energy in the vacuum because of less entropy? Is our universe inflating because of the vacuum being pumped with extra energy (entropy) inflating the plank length? (continuous energy being lost to light and no real way to get it back.)

Maybe an event horizon is so dense that there is no wiggle room for virtual pairs to have energy and hence zero time/(kinetic energy)/(plank length). Any incoming energy condensates into a part of the solid shell. However, I hate to think of a black hole as lacking in kinetic energy. Hmm...

Negative energy density is just relative to the surrounding environment and gravity is associated with a negative energy, changing non-local speed of light and I think a plank length. One can imagine the warping of the space metric by such a change in a plank cube length which is interesting to think about.

One however doesn't necessarily need a negative energy or some change in density of the virtual particles but rather to induce a gradient in the energy density such that matter feels this gradient. Could such a gradient have an effect on virtual particles also giving us a route to conservation of momentum? Could the EM drive be something similar?
#27 by Giovanni on 21 Jul, 2017 21:27
EmDrive:
In the article 'Does the speed of light depend on vacuum', the dependence of the virtual couple lifetime and the module of an external electric or magnetic field is calculated. ~~Surprisingly, this relationship does not depend on the angle between the dipole and the field.~~ [sorry, i made a mistake: the average lifetime is obviously related only to the module of E and B. But the following applies, however]

I thought a way to use virtual couples for propulsion is to make life time grow more if the couple is moving in a certain direction. It should be possible with an electric field that grows very rapidly in the aforementioned direction. The virtual pairs appear with a momentum that follows a uniform distribution, those moving in the 'privileged' direction live longer so the isotropy of the momentum is broken and the apparatus accelerates in the opposite direction.
Maybe something like this happens in the emDrive. I do not know.
#28 by dustinthewind on 22 Jul, 2017 02:15
Quote from: Giovanni on 21 Jul, 2017 21:27
EmDrive:
In the article 'Does the speed of light depend on vacuum', the dependence of the virtual couple lifetime and the module of an external electric or magnetic field is calculated. Surprisingly, this relationship does not depend on the angle between the dipole and the field. I thought a way to use virtual couples for propulsion is to make life time grow more if the couple is moving in a certain direction. It should be possible with an electric field that grows very rapidly in the aforementioned direction. The virtual pairs appear with a momentum that follows a uniform distribution, those moving in the 'privileged' direction live longer so the isotropy of the momentum is broken and the apparatus accelerates in the opposite direction.
Maybe something like this happens in the emDrive. I do not know.

That jogs my memory of another experiment where the angle of the magnetic filed and the charges spin direction didn't influence the experiment. Instead it turned out to be quantum. The electrons either had spin up or down and nothing in between. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern%E2%80%93Gerlach_experiment

I have a suspicion reguarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwinger_limit that the limit can be significantly reduced if some form of resonance is induced. Such a resonance would allow energy to build up in the pairs. Focus would also be important. The reason being if you annihilate a single pair they radiate light away from a single point. To reverse the time would cause light to converge on that single point (focus).

Some part of me wants to think that these pairs that disappear into the vacuum may be light itself. That is low energy osculations have a linear effect and not until you reach a certain energy do you see the non-linear scattering of energy.

I almost want to believe the vacuum would have some local frame defined on average by these phantom pairs. Such an arrangement would define a maximum speed of light in two directions. Light passing between pairs with different relative velocities would experience doppler shifts assocaiated with a change in frame. Such change in frames are experienced near gravitational wells where frequency can change. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_redshift#Experimental_Verification
One might imagine it as energy travling between virtural particles where faster moving virtural particles, lower in the gravity well, appear red-shifted to the ones above that do not yet move as fast. Or is it space time contracting because of constant acceleration??? Or is that another side, of the same coin?

When the local velocity or contraction of space time equals c we might have an event horizon. Time stops and infinite contraction = zero plank length. Does going beyond that barrier = a white hole on the other side? Some inversion of the plank length? Reversal of time?

So does space drift? Have you ever heard of Gravity probe b or the "Lens-Thirring precession" ?http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/05/long-last-gravity-probe-b-satellite-proves-einstein-right

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lense%E2%80%93Thirring_precession

Basically a rotating object appears to be able to drag space time around with it causing the speed of light one way around the object to be faster than the other. Sounds a lot life a drift in the vacuum to me.

The problem is how to couple in a more effective manner than we currently do so as to more effectively manipulate the vacuum. Would resonance with the vacuum do the trick?
#29 by Giovanni on 22 Aug, 2017 22:37
Interesting questions and maybe in the future I will find time and way to respond. Meanwhile, I've read more about wikipedia entry on the schwinger limit and it seemed to me to miss some interesting details. There is no need for two photons to separate virtual pairs: this can be achieved with a simple electrostatic field.

Gravity and Strings

<<How can a BH from which nothing can ever escape (classically) radiate? The physical mechanism behind the Hawking radiation seems to be the process of Schwinger pair creation in strong background fields [....] which was originally discovered for electric fields [....] the same effect causes the spontaneus discharge of charged bodies (such a positively charged sphere, say) left in vacuum: if the electric field is strong enough, the electron and positron of a virtual pair can be separated. The electron will move toward the sphere being captured by it, while the positron will be accelerated to infinity. From far away, one would observe a radiation of positrons coming from the charged sphere, whose charge would diminish by a little. In fact this process is belived to cause the discharge of Reissner-Nordstrom BHs.>>
#30 by Giovanni on 24 Aug, 2017 18:53
I have found some articles that summarize and generalize important results: perhaps some of the readers will find it interesting to know them. The articles are:

A) SPEED OF LIGHT IN NON–TRIVIAL VACUA

B) Geometric Backreaction of Modified Quantum Vacua and Diffeomorphrisim Covarience

Some important formulas:

(where α is the fine structure constant and α²_G is the mass of the electron squared written in Plankian units (the gravitational coupling constant))

1) Relationship between the value of c and the distance between the plates: (Scharnhorst effect)

c = 1 − β where β = − (11 * π² * α²) / (8100 * α²_G * L⁴)

2) Relationship between the value of c and the temperature:

c = 1 − β where β = (106 * π² * α² * T⁴) / (2835 * α²_G )

(Important note: <<All the above results are perturbative and should only be believed when small>> (from A))

3) Generalization of the previous: relationship between the value of c and the vacuum energy density ρ_a

c = 1 − β where β = (44 * α² * ρ_a) / (135 * m⁴_e )

(Note: will there be a more complete, non-perturbative formula for c(ρ) we do not know?)

<<It follows automatically that if the vacuum has a lower energy density than the standard vacuum, ρ_a < 0 and c > 1, and viceversa>> (from A)

so we have exotic => superluminal

I read a quotation from a Thorne book:
<< "... in 1974 ... Hawking inferred as a byproduct of his discovery of black hole evaporation ... that vacuum fluctuations near a [Black Hole] 's horizon are exotic: They have negative average energy density as seen by outgoing light beams near the hole's horizon. >>

so near a black hole the photons are superluminal.

as <<The physical mechanism behind the Hawking radiation seems to be the process of Schwinger pair creation in strong background fields >> (see the previous post)

whe have E >> schwinger limit => superluminal photons
#31 by Giovanni on 03 Sep, 2017 18:03
I have sent mail to many physicists but I have not yet received a response: it is a shame .... if there was an obvious mistake it would be inexpensive to point it out .... if instead the error is not so obvious it would still be interesting to talk about the discussion ....
#32 by Giovanni on 05 Sep, 2017 08:56
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so near a black hole the photons are superluminal.

after a quick search i found:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2853083/Scientists-lightning-sparking-supermassive-black-hole-appears-travel-faster-speed-light.html
#33 by Giovanni on 08 Sep, 2017 08:04
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whe have E >> schwinger limit => superluminal photons

about this i found:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/jan/11/pulsar-bursts-move-faster-than-light

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When the value of c changes in a certain space region Loretz transformations change in agreement. So if c grows, relativistic effects weaken and the limit speed achievable with a reasonable amount of energy increases.

for this I found a lot of material that is briefly summarized here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion

It may sound weird but all in all it is plausible or at least it is for me. The following analogy is a bit raw and maybe you risk losing vital details but I write: it's like shooting a rocket in butter. A rocket whose surface temperature can be raised at will. The higher the surface temperature the lower the friction of the butter and the higher the speed limit reached by the rocket. All these objects have a black hole in the center. The black hole changes the value of c in its surroundings to a new c_new value so it can reach, through a finite amount of energy, a velocity between c and c_new.
#34 by Giovanni on 16 Sep, 2017 11:29
back to the main argument: an electric field higher than the schwinger limit is necessary but perhaps not enough. We need to study the virtual couple + field above the schwinger limit system. I do not know if an analytical solution is known but surely in free time I'll run a simulation with Runge-Kutta and I'll see.

Exceeding the Schwinger limit will take some time. Is there a way to produce negative energy that can be used right away to send superluminal photons? Yes: squeezed vacuum. For an introduction to the topic, look at the following link:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/negativeenergy/negativeenergy.htm

<< As an example, researchers in quantum optics have created special states of fields in which destructive quantum interference suppresses the vacuum fluctuations. These so-called squeezed vacuum states include negative energy. More precisely, they are associated with regions of alternating positive and negative energy.

The total energy averaged over all the space remains positive; squeezing the vacuum creates negative energy in one place at the price of extra positive energy elsewhere. A typical experiment involves laser beams passing through nonlinear optical materials [see "Squeezed Light," by Richart E. Slusher and Bernard Yurke; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, May 1988]. The intense laser light induces the material to create pairs of light quanta, photons. These photons alternately enhance and suppress the vacuum fluctuations, leading to regions of positive and negative energy, respectively. >>

Recently there have been news on the topic summarized here:

http://www.ibtimes.com/manipulating-quantum-vacuum-researchers-demonstrate-technique-detect-signals-2478237

So the program could be as follows:
1) Use the technique described above to create nearby negative energy regions.
2) Send a photon through only these regions (thus avoiding regions with extra positive energy).
3) Measure the speed of the photon.
4) If this turns out to be superluminal, then you can pass to massive particles: you could measure the gamma factor and see if it is closer to 1 than the one for regions whose energy density is zero. (ie, the speed of light is equal to c)