Mirror Mode Junctions as Sources of Radiation

Abstract

Mirror modes in collisionless high-temperature plasmas represent macroscopic high-temperature quasi-superconductors with bouncing electrons in discrete-particle resonance with thermal ion-sound noise contributing to the ion-mode growth beyond quasilinear stability. In the semi-classical Ginzburg-Landau approximation the conditions for phase transition are reviewed. The quasi-superconducting state is of second kind causing a magnetically perforated plasma texture. Focussing on the interaction of mirror bubbles we apply semi-classical Josephson conditions and show that a mirror perforated plasma emits weak electromagnetic radiation which in the magnetosheath should be in the sub-millimeter, respectively, infrared range. This effect might be of astrophysical importance.

Condensate Formation in Collisionless Plasma

“…In mirror modes, the presence of the condensate causes the evolution of chains of mirror bubbles according to the intervention of the Ginzburg ratio κ G . Interacting bubbles oscillate at Josephson frequency [39,40] which in the magnetosheath is expected to be in the infrared or submillimeter range [13], oscillation presumably there being too weak for detection however.…”

“…Condensates, if present, provide the basis for a semi-classical phase transition in dilute collisionless plasmas which explains the observed partial Meissner effect under the prevalent high temperatures [13,14]. The question of how precisely such condensates form has, however, been left open so far.…”

Condensate formation in collisionless plasma

“…Condensates if present provide the basis for a semi-classical phase transition in dilute high temperature plasma which explains the observed partial Meissner effect under the prevalent high temperatures (Treumann & Baumjohann, 2019, 2021.…”

Diffuse Josephson Radiation in Turbulence

“…The physics of such junctions had been discovered and formulated 60 years ago [11,12] and in quantum devices has become an extraordinarily important diagnostic tool for measuring tiny electric potential differences. For natural systems, it has been reviewed in recent work, focusing on meso-scale mirror mode turbulence [13] in near-Earth space. The scales will be vastly different, but it is reasonable to assume that turbulence basically forms structures occupying the range from the largest mechanically driven alfvénic scales down into the ion inertial scale range in interaction with their nearest neighbors, preferentially of similar scale, by exchanging tunneling currents [14][15][16] across the separating magnetic filamentary walls.…”