Plasma cosmology is a non-standardcosmological view which relies on the electromagnetic effects of plasma for explaining the large-scale structure of the universe, energy storage, and energy flow between separate areas of the universe, among other things.
In the mid-1990s, interest in plasma cosmologies arose among the standard (Big Bang) cosmological community, mostly as a "fallback" theory, in case COBE failed to discover variations in the cosmic microwave background or in case primordial helium abundances turned out to be unexplainable by standard cosmologies. This interest rapidly waned as more precise measurements, such as those from COBE, appeared to support standard cosmologies in the late 1990's.
However, both Anthony Peratt and Eric J. Lerner have shown how the CMB can also support plasma cosmology. In particular, Lerner has shown how the COBE results themselves can support plasma cosmology. Regardless of this, as of 2003, plasma cosmology is still not accepted by most cosmologists.
Within astrophysics, plasma physics and electromagnetic fields are active areas of research. Many astrophysical bodies are believed to be made of plasma, and even within the conventional Big Bang cosmology, the entire early universe consisted of plasma before recombination (eg. the process in which electrons become confined to protons to make neutral atoms) occurred. Though, in contrast to the Big Bang's poor performance, plasma cosmology's predictions of nucleosynthesis have performed well.
Despite the general importance of plasma in astrophysics, and the assertions of the standard model that electromagnetic forces may be important for describing local phenomena, the standard model continues to delineate that these forces are not important at large cosmological distances. The reason for this is generally believed that unlike the other three forces which are attractive only, electromagnetism is both attractive and repulsive and over large cosmological distances, electromagnetic forces are believed to cancel each other. This is not always the case however. It can be shown that the electromagnetic forces are several orders of magnitude greater than the gravitational forces in a plasma and that the electromagnetic forces can have a longer range than gravitational forces.
This causes a rapid expansion of the region local to the annihilation. The Alfven model deals with the problem of cancellation explained above by postulating that the regions of matter and anti-matter are larger than the presently observable universe, and are separated by double-layers in the plasma. Alfven heavily stressed the importance of the cellular and filamentary nature of plasmas at any scale, from the laboratory to the galactic.
Alfven's model possesses a number of highly appealing properties. Firstly, it addresses the question of what happened before expansion, which is not addressed by standard Big Bang cosmology. Alfven postulated that the universe has always existed, and that the expansion we might now be seeing is merely a local phase of a much larger history. Secondly, the model does not invoke any exotic physics (other than antimatter, which has been verified on Earth in high-energy colliders), instead modelling the universe using the well-understood electromagnetic forces along with gravity.
Due to its empirical foundations (Alfven was a laboratory physicist at heart, developing power-transmission systems and the like), Alfven's model depended on well-documented laboratory experimentation and physics. From a theoretical point of view, Alfven was unable to formalize his model to the point where it is possible to perform numerical simulations similar to those now performed to model the behavior of early galaxies.
Alfven proposed that the bubble of matter we are in is larger than the observable universe. This brought the question of how one would go about testing the model if the structures that it predicts cannot be observed. Although 3-D formation simulations of single galaxies have been performed using the plasma model (see articles by Anthony Peratt) wherein electromagnetic forces are taken into account along with gravitation, there have been no published papers which attempt to calculate correlation functions and comparison with observations.
Hannes Alfven - Along with Birkeland, fathered Plasma Cosmology and was a pioneer in laboratory based plasma physics. Received the only Nobel Prize ever awarded to a plasma physicist.
Willard Harrison Bennett - The z-pinch was first called the "Bennett pinch". Also invented radio frequency mass spectrometry.
Kristian Birkeland - First suggested that polar electric currents [or aurorall electrojets] are connected to a system of filaments (now called "Birkeland Currents") that flowed along geomagnetic field lines into and away from the polar region. Suggested that space is not a vacuum but is instead filled with plasma. Pioneered the technique of "laboratory astrophysics", which became directly responsible for our present understanding of the aurora.
Irving Langmuir - Developed electron temperature concepts and a thermionic probe, the Langmuir probe. Coined the term "plasma" to hint at the life-like behavior of this state of matter.
Eric J. Lerner - Showed that the intergalactic medium absorbs and attenuates radio frequencies, and invalidated the "primordial" interpretation of the CMB. Wrote a comprehensive introductory book to the subject of Plasma Cosmology, "The Big Bang Never Happened".
Louis Néel - Contributed fundamental research on and discoveries in antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism.
Anthony Peratt - Developed computer simulations of galaxy formation using Birkeland currents along with gravity. Along with Alfven, organized international conferences on Plasma Cosmology.
Although there are many local redshifting mechanisms observed in laboratoryexperimentation with plasmas, one problem in using a majority of them to explain cosmological redshifts is that it is difficult to account for a change in the energy of a photon going through plasma without photon scattering (changing the photon's direction of propagation.) In some non-linear optical phenomena there are forms of scattering in which the direction of propagation of the photons is not changed. Specifically, one promising candidate for astrophysical application is Forward Brillouin Scattering, found locally in Laser Fusion devices, as an example. This form of forward scattering causes a redshift and a broadening of spectral lines without changing the direction of propagation of the incident light.
