Redshift in Absolute Space: Periodicity of Quasars and Other Cosmological Implications
| Scientific Paper | |
|---|---|
| Title | Redshift in Absolute Space: Periodicity of Quasars and Other Cosmological Implications |
| Read in full | Link to paper |
| Author(s) | Hector A Munera |
| Keywords | preferred frame, gravitational and velocity components, redshifts |
| Published | 1998 |
| Journal | Apeiron |
| Volume | 5 |
| Number | 3-4 |
| No. of pages | 11 |
| Pages | 169-180 |
Read the full paper here
Abstract
Assuming the existence of a preferred frame Σ (i.e., absolute space), we start from a Newtonian model based on the equivalence of gravitational work and inertial energy. Microscopic processes for the absorption and emission of photons lead to frequency shifts in absolute space. The resulting expressions contain both gravitational and velocity components, but — in contrast to the conventional model — the gravitational term dominates. Redshifts are associated with very dense objects at almost any speed relative to Σ, and with normal stars at low speeds in Σ; on the other hand, blueshifts correspond to low density objects moving at high speeds in Σ. These results contrast with the conventional model where red/blueshifts are associated with recession/approximation from/to us. The present model predicts that photons may escape from extremely high-density objects, thus eliminating the concept of black holes. There is no connection assumed between redshift and distance, so that high-redshift objects may be associated with objects having smaller redshifts. Also, our theoretical equation for frequency shifts is completely consistent with the phenomenological equation describing the observed periodicity in the redshift of quasars, suggesting that such objects may be formed by an integer number of neutron stars, moving at speeds around 0.5c relative to Σ.
Overview
Héctor Múnera, of the Centro Internacional de Física in Bogotá, sets out a redshift theory built on a preferred frame Σ — "absolute space" — in which photons always travel at c and in which he takes the photon's frequency to be an intrinsic, observer-independent property, like its spin and charge. He calls the scheme the Newtonian Inertial Model (NIM), and derives it from a principle he had developed earlier: the equivalence of gravitational work and inertial energy, so that a photon climbing out of a potential well loses energy by doing work against the field rather than by having its clock rate altered.
The motivation is the anomaly literature. Múnera cites Arp's associations of high-redshift quasars with low-redshift galaxies, the mid-1990s claim that some stars appeared older than the universe, and the missing-mass problem, and invokes Popper: "only one, reasonably good, contradictory observation suffices to falsify a model." He also notes his own prior re-analysis of Michelson–Morley type experiments as being compatible with absolute space. The result is a model in which redshift carries no distance information at all: it is set by an object's compactness GM/rc2 and by its speed through Σ, so that objects with very different redshifts may sit side by side in space.
The model
Frequency shifts in Σ
An atom moving at speed V in Σ has inertial energy in each internal state modified by the Lorentz factor, so the energy of a photon emitted in the transition S2 → S1 is E(V) = γ(V)ΔE0. Comparing the same transition in a cosmological object C and on Earth gives
νC/νE = γC/γE = [(1−βE2)/(1−βC2)]1/2 (eq. 6)
Múnera stresses two departures from the conventional treatment. There is redshift when VC < VE — when the source moves slower than Earth through Σ — and "only speeds are involved (i.e., no vector addition between VC and VE)": there is no line-of-sight angle and hence no first-order Doppler term at all.
For the gravitational part he integrates the work done by a photon against the field of C, with the photon's own inertial energy included in the force law, and obtains an exponential rather than a square-root law:
E(r)/EC = e−(u−uC), u ≡ GIC/rc4 = GMC/rc2
so that for a photon escaping to infinity, z = eu∞ − 1 (eqs. 15–16). Expanded, z ≈ u + u2/2 + u3/6, which agrees with the general-relativistic z ≈ u + 3u2/2 + … only to first order. Múnera is explicit that this makes the two indistinguishable in weak fields: for the Earth u∞ = 7×10−10, so both models satisfy Pound–Rebka and the Vessot hydrogen-maser rocket test (confirmed to 1 part in 14,000, far above the ~1 in 1010 needed to separate them).
No black holes
In general relativity an object compressed to its Schwarzschild radius has u∞ = ½, and light cannot escape. In the NIM the photon merely pays an exponential toll: it escapes with E∞ = ESe−1/2 = 0.6065 ES, corresponding to zS = e1/2 − 1 = 0.65. Even at u∞ = 2 a photon leaves with e−2 = 13.5% of its energy. "As announced, there are no 'black holes' in the NIM model", and Múnera takes the observed radio emission from very massive objects as support.
Table 1 tabulates z for objects of different compactness (Sun u = 2×10−6, white dwarf 2×10−4, neutron star 2×10−1, and u = 0.5 and 1.0) at absolute speeds from 200 to 30,000 km/s, taking βE = 10−3. The pattern he draws from it: "blueshift … only arises for low density objects (like our sun) moving at high VC. For dense objects, redshift appears at almost all speeds" — which he offers as an explanation of why redshifts vastly outnumber blueshifts in astronomy without invoking expansion.
Quasar periodicity
Arp's empirical law for the discrete redshift classes of quasars is Δln(1+z) = constant, with a zero-offset parameter a. Múnera observes that his equation (30) takes exactly that form, since ln(1+z) = u∞ + ln(γE/γQ): a ladder of objects whose gravitational potentials differ by a fixed Δu∞ produces precisely Arp's geometric ladder in (1+z), with the offset fixed by the quasars' common speed through Σ.
He evaluates Δu∞ directly from Arp's tabulated class redshifts (Tables 2–4): 0.2057 for "all quasars", 0.2197 for objective-prism quasars, 0.2330 for quasars near the M87 line of galaxies. The first "is exactly the same as the best value for the constant (0.206), recently reported by Arp et al." Since Table 1 gives u∞ ≈ 0.2 for a neutron star, "it thus appears as if quasars were formed by integer number of neutron stars", each class i being i such objects. Inverting the offset (eq. 34) with Arp's range 0.02 < a < 0.06 gives βQ = 0.558 and 0.506 respectively, hence "quasars move at about 0.5c relative to Σ".
Predictions follow: for the "all quasars" group the i = 1 and i = 7 classes should sit at z = 0.058 and z = 2.636. Múnera notes that Arp et al. report a peak at z ≈ 0.062, originally found by Burbidge in 1968, and high-redshift peaks at z = 2.66 and 2.73. He closes with a speculation from his own field of nuclear physics — that quasars with z ≈ 1 (class i = 4) are especially bright, as alpha particles with four nucleons are especially bound: "are neutron stars the cosmological nucleons?"
Assessment
Múnera's paper is careful about its own limits in a way many preferred-frame papers are not. He states plainly where the NIM is indistinguishable from relativity (first order in u), names the experiments that therefore cannot decide between them (Pound–Rebka, Vessot), and identifies the one measurement then approaching the required precision, quoting Wolf and Petit's GPS anisotropy bound δc/c ≈ 1.6×10−9 as "just in the limit of the required sensitivity". That is honest bookkeeping.
Most of the arithmetic checks out. u∞ for the Earth is indeed GM/Rc2 = 7.0×10−10; for the Sun 2.1×10−6; for a 1.4 M☉, 12 km neutron star 0.17, consistent with the 0.2 used. At the Schwarzschild radius e−1/2 = 0.6065 and e1/2 − 1 = 0.6487, exactly as printed. Table 2 is correct entry by entry: ln(1.30) = 0.26236 through ln(2.96) = 1.08519, successive differences 0.2076, 0.2029, 0.2067, 0.2056, mean 0.2057. Table 3's mean of 0.21966 is also right, being the total span divided by four intervals — though the Δ column there is misleading, since its first entry 0.39812 spans two class intervals because class 3 is missing from Arp's data. And the inversion for βQ reproduces exactly: with u∞ = 0.206, βQ2 = 1 − (1+a)2e−2u gives 0.558 for a = 0.02 and 0.506 for a = 0.06.
Two numerical errors are worth recording. First, in Table 4 the entry Δu∞ = 0.22166 for the step from z = 0.42 to z = 0.72 is wrong: ln(1.72) − ln(1.42) = 0.54232 − 0.35066 = 0.19166. It looks like a transposed digit, but because Múnera averaged the printed column rather than taking span/interval as he did in Tables 2 and 3, the error propagates: the correct mean is 0.2255, not the 0.2330 he reports and carries forward into Table 5. Second, and more systematically, the last column of Table 1 (VC = 30,000 km/s) drops the square root from equation (30), using (1−β2) in place of √(1−β2) and so roughly doubling the Doppler term. The Sun's entry should read −5.01×10−3, not −9.997×10−3; the white dwarf −4.81×10−3, not −9.801×10−3; the neutron star +0.2153, not +0.2092; and the u = 0.5 and 1.0 rows +0.6398 and +1.7047 rather than +0.63224 and +1.69110. The first three columns are correct, so this is an isolated slip rather than a wrong formula, and it does not change the qualitative pattern the table is used to argue for.
The more serious difficulties are structural. The quasar result is close to circular. Arp's empirical law is Δln(1+z) = constant; Múnera's model gives z = eu − 1, hence ln(1+z) = u; so any set of objects whose gravitational potentials form an arithmetic ladder reproduces the law exactly. The functional form is not a prediction of the physics — it follows from the exponential, which was itself chosen — and the ladder in u is put in by hand. The physical content is entirely in the claim that quasars come in units of Δu = 0.206, and this is where the model does not close. For a body of N neutron stars, u = GM/rc2 scales as N only if the radius stays fixed while the mass multiplies; real degenerate-matter mass–radius relations are flat to slightly decreasing, and there is no configuration of seven neutron stars with u = 1.44 that is not, in standard gravity, well inside a horizon. Múnera does deny horizons, so this is not an inconsistency in his own terms — but it means the neutron-star identification is a coincidence of magnitude, not a derivation.
Two conflicts with established measurement are decisive and not addressed. The first is the elimination of first-order Doppler. Equation (6) depends only on speeds, with no line-of-sight angle, and the paper's premise that ν is an intrinsic observer-independent property forbids any shift from the observer's motion. But first-order Doppler is measured routinely and to high precision: the ±2 km/s tilt of solar spectral lines from limb to limb, the sinusoidal radial-velocity curves of spectroscopic binaries, the 59 m/s wobble by which 51 Pegasi b was found, and the 21 cm rotation curves from which galactic dynamics is read. None of these has anything to do with the sources' compactness or their speed relative to any cosmic frame. The second is the sign of the velocity term. In the NIM a faster-moving emitter produces a higher photon energy (E ∝ γ). The measured second-order Doppler shift goes the other way: an ion moving at speed v emits at ν0/γ, verified in the Ives–Stilwell experiment of 1938 and, in its modern form, by Botermann and colleagues in 2014 using Li+ ions at 0.338c in the ESR storage ring, agreeing with the relativistic prediction to about 2×10−8. Since laboratory ion speeds vastly exceed any plausible VE, the NIM predicts a large blueshift where a redshift of exactly 1/γ is seen.
Gravitational quasar redshifts also face the objection Greenstein and Schmidt raised in 1964 and which the paper does not mention: because z depends on GM/rc2, an emitting region of any appreciable radial extent produces a spread of shifts, so lines should be broadened by an amount comparable to the shift itself. Quasar emission lines have widths of order 10−2 of their wavelength while their shifts are of order unity — a ratio of a hundred or more, requiring the emission to come from an implausibly thin shell. Independently, quasar redshifts are found to match the stellar-absorption redshifts of their own host galaxies, which carry no such potential. And the Arp–Karlsson periodicity itself, on which the whole quasar section rests, has not survived larger samples: Hawkins, Maddox and Merrifield's analysis of an unbiased 2dF quasar sample in 2002, and subsequent SDSS studies, found no statistically significant periodicity in log(1+z). Finally, the black-hole-free prediction now confronts the Event Horizon Telescope images of M87* and Sgr A*, whose shadow diameters match the horizon scale of the inferred masses.
Two minor points of framing. The claim that Michelson–Morley is "the only empirical evidence" for the absence of a preferred frame understates the case — Kennedy–Thorndike, Ives–Stilwell and modern resonator experiments each constrain a different parameter. And the assertion that COBE suggested stars older than the universe misattributes a real 1990s tension, which came from globular-cluster ages set against the Hubble constant, and which was largely resolved by the Hipparcos revision of the cluster distance scale in 1997 and by the subsequent determination of the cosmological constant.
What remains attractive is the paper's central structural point, independent of the specific mechanism: that a redshift produced by compactness rather than distance would allow objects of very different z to be physically associated, which is exactly what Arp's photographs appeared to show. That is a coherent thing to want from a theory. The NIM's arithmetic is, with the two exceptions noted, sound; its difficulty is that it purchases the quasar ladder at the cost of ordinary Doppler spectroscopy.