Paul and Gordon, my page points to Ned Wright's tired light
critique and acknowledges that if distant supernovae light
curves are genuinely stretched in direct proportion to the
observed redshift then this constitutes an excellent disproof of
any tired light theory explaining that redshift. My initial
impression was that this approach could be subject to errors
regarding proper correction for extinction etc. I will try to
scrutinise the key papers listed at:

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#TD


What do you think about the failure to find the Transverse
Proximity Effect with a foreground quasar?

If Big Bang cosmology is correct, then the redshift of light
from distant quasars occurs in easily predicted locations along
the sightline from the quasar to Earth. This would mean that
the failure to find the transverse proximity effect with a
foreground quasar must be explained by one or more of three
extremely unlikely (considering that the effect has not been
found in any of the cases examined in detail) or provably
non-existent (in a particular case) mechanisms.

The TPE effect is expected according to Big Bang cosmology - the
foreground quasar is believed to lie close to the sightline to a
background quasar and the foreground quasar is predicted to
ionize all neutral H in its vicinity, which should result in an
absence of Lyman alpha absorption in the spectrum of the
background quasar at a wavelength corresponding to the redshift
of the foreground quasar. The repeated failure to find this
effect leaves investigators to choose between three
alternatives, which can be identified, if not fully described as:

1 - The foreground quasar turns on and off - and was off
at the time it would have had to be on to ionize the
neutral H in the sightline to the background quasar.

2 - The foreground quasar's light (UV at least) is beamed
towards us and does not affect the sightline to the
background quasar.

3 - The foreground quasar is surrounded by a cloud which
prevents its light from ionizing the neutral H in the
sightline to the background quasar.

However, a simpler explanation is that the redshift of light
from these quasars happens primarily near them (due to plasma
redshift or some other such process) so firstly the quasars are
closer than usually assumed and secondly the redshift along the
sightline doesn't happen in a linear or easily predictable
fashion. In this explanation, we have no clear idea of the
distances to the quasars. Maybe the so-called "background"
quasar, the one with the higher redshift, is closer than the
lower redshift quasar, but has more of its total redshift
occurring in the region close to it.

The most recent papers on the failure to find the Transverse
Proximity Effect with a foreground quasar have not yet been
published, but the pre-prints, and a PhD thesis by Michael
Schirber are pointed to from:

http://astroneu.com/plasma-redshift-1/#TPE

and are listed below.

- Robin


Michael Schirber's thesis, section 8, page 160 (page 175 in
the PDF):
Sources, Sinks and Scatterers of the Ultra-Violet Background
http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?osu1072842778
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~astro/thesis.pdf

The Transverse Proximity Effect: A Probe to the Environment,
Anisotropy, and Megayear Variability of QSOs
Michael Schirber, Jordi Miralda-Escude, Patrick McDonald
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0307563

Ionizing radiation fluctuations and large-scale structure in
the Lyman-alpha forest
Rupert A.C. Croft http://astrophysics.phys.cmu.edu/~rcroft/
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310890