Ranging and Pioneer

Thus spake "John (Liberty) Bell"

Oh No wrote:

Yes, I am aware of Charles Francis' proposal, primarily via prior
discussion under a different title. However,
1) That proposal is qualitatively different from the quoted and
commented on papers.
2) I have yet to see an adequately satisfactory explanation of how that
proposed effect can produce a red shift on one side of a galaxy, and a
blue shift on the opposite side, whilst still giving the observed
Pioneer blue shift, on both sides of the Solar System.

What is measured is a shift in the wavefunction corresponding to an
eigenstate of acceleration. For a general motion in radial coordinates a
Newtonian acceleration toward the origin is given by -r^dotdot + r w^2,
where r is radial distance and w is angular velocity. In the case of
Pioneer the motion is principally radial and the first term dominates;
the result is an illusory radial acceleration. For a star in orbit the
motion is approximately circular, so the second term dominates. The
actual calculation is a little more complicated, but the net result for
a star in orbit is an apparent increase in orbital velocity, or rather a
shift in the wave function equivalent to such an increase.


I should like to add a note about the source of the shift. As John says,
in standard general relativity the cosmological redshift due to
expansion exactly matches a Doppler shift due to recession velocities.
The result of using the teleconnection is that this prediction is
changed, so that recession velocities are only half that of standard
gtr. The net effect of this disparity is a blue-shift in signals from
Pioneer. The blue-shift does not correspond to a classical acceleration.

Which is why I suggested a possible crude test to establish whether
that assertion was true or not. Unfortunately it appears, from the
responses of others, that NASA were unable to establish when the
antenna signal turned off, under ground control instruction, to the
required accuracy of 1 second or so.

At the moment I think my best prospect of a direct test is that the
Hipparcos parallax distance of the Pleiades and some other globular
clusters is not consistent with other determinations of the distance.
The predicted change in rotational velocity of the Milky Way is of the
right order of magnitude to account for this, but I have a bit of work
to do to get myself up to speed on the calculation itself. The actual
changes in Doppler measured from the Sun to other orbiting stars are
small, less than 1km/s for a star 200kpc away which makes it difficult
to distinguish the effect from random differences in orbit which are
typically an order of magnitude larger.


I have done some preliminary data analysis which appears to confirm this
for galactic rotation curves and I am currently working on an improved
treatment for the paper, as well as more detailed comparisons with data
for the Milky Way to show that, after allowing for the predicted changes
in Doppler shifts, observations are consistent with Newtonian motion.

I look forward to your revised explanation with interest.


I'll let you know as soon as I am happy to put a revised version on
arxiv.



Regards

--
Charles Francis
substitute charles for NotI to email