New "universal" constant for plasmas?
Posted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:04 pm
Space plasmas share a secret
Evidence of Large-Scale Quantization in Space Plasmas (free PDF)The controversial idea comes from George Livadiotis and David McComas, two physicists at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas. They had been exploring basic parameters of different plasmas across the Universe, such as their temperature, density and the strength of their magnetic fields. From that information, the researchers calculated a new parameter, called h*, that characterizes each plasma.
“We went into this thinking we’d find one value in one plasma, and another value in another plasma,” says McComas. “We were shocked and slightly horrified to find the same value across all of them. This is really a major deal.”