CHINESE JOURNAL OF PHYSICS

VOL. 25, NO. 1

SPRING 1987

Magnetic Moments of Astrophysical Objects as a Consequence of General Relativity

Allan Widom and Dharam V. Ahluwalia*

Department of Physics, Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
(Received 20 September 1986)

A rotating astrophysical object with spin angular momentum s generally exhibits a magnetic moment z. Observational data accumulated for over a half century indicates that for widely varying astrophysical objects 1 = fl(dG/c)S, where 0 is a constant of the order of unity. This emperical relation is here discussed in terms of LenseThirring effect in the general relativity. _ * Present Address: Dept. of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843

INTRODUCTION
Blackett , following the workds of Schuster, Sutherland and Wilson2, pointed out that the ratios, of the magnitudes of the magnetic moments z to the intrinsic spin angular m o m e n t u m 3, of the Earth, the Sun, and the star 78 Virginis are nearly equal, and they are close to the square root of the gravitational constant G divided by the velocity of light c. We in fact can write,

(1)
where p is a constant of the order of unity. More recently Ahluwalia and Wu3, Muradyan4, and Sirag5 have argued that this ernperical observation now extends to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, a pulsar: Hercules X-l, a DP-type White Dwarf, and to our Galaxy, with the possible exception of Mars. Unlike all above cited authors Russe16 associates no physical significance to these coincidences; but recently Sirag has published a remarkably convincing statistical study on p/S data for most of the above astrophysical o bjects and argues that it is not a linear relationship between p and S t hat is surprising: a priori one should expect a correlation, the surprise is that that the correlation ratio p/S should turn out to be so close to JGjc. It has been suggested l-5 that underlying the emperical observation:
23

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MAGNETIC MOMENTS OF ASTROPHYSICAL OBJECTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

(for most of the astrophysical objects for which both p and S are known) is some yet unknown physical principle; and this essentially takes the form of gravimagnetic hypothesis which proposes that a mass current density r,, measured in gravitational units, for a rotating mass is equivalent to an electric current density lq, measured in e.s.u, as far as the magnetic effect is concerned,

$ =

1/GS,

(3)

(for rotating objects). It should be noted, however, that the gravi-magnetic hypothesis suggests that 5: and?! should be anti-parallel. This, we know, is contrary to the observational facts. The angle between z and 3 varies from 0 to rr for astrophysical objects. Moreover it changes in time. Apart from this hypothesis there is one other attempt which is being made recently to understand relation (2). De Sabbata and Gasperini7 argue that equation (2) can be obtained as a consequence of the initial conditions of the universe, provided that torsion is introduced into the gravitational equations, and that the large number hypothesis of Dirac is assumed.

ASTROPHSICAL MAGNETIC MOMENTS AND LENSE-THIRRING EFFECT In what follows we discuss equation (2) within the framework of conventional general relativity and standard electrodynamics. To procede, let us consider two rotating astrophysical objects with spin angular momentum 3, and x2, separated by a distance r (which we assume is much larger than the size of the astrophysical objects, and is in general time dependent). Let ; r and & be their respective magnetic moments presumably arising from internal astrophysical dynamos,. The magnetic moment ; i produces a magnetic field 3 1 given bylo: I$
1

= 3r& ) -;rr r3

(4)

where r is a unit vector directed from object-l to object-2. Similarly in the weak field approximation, the spin angular momentum 3t 1 pro d uces (outside object-l ) a gravomagnetic field l, via the Lense-Thirring effect, given by:

(5)

ALLAN WIDOM AND DHARAM V. AHLUWALIA

25

As a result the combined interaction energy 3, --G2 .;8, - 3, approximation1 4 reads:

6U =-+-

.z, , in the weak field

(6)

l [$(s,.s; -3 (fSd(_S2)) +{;,.L -3(i;Af.h}].

Since all astrophysical objects are embedded in a galactic or cosmological environment we extend equation (6) to a system composed of n astrophysical objects. The generalisation of equation (6) to this realistic system then reads:
AU =

c 2

i#j

+ [$ {$.S - 3(iij.Si) ,;,.s,} +{Gi.zj - 3(rij.;i)(iij.:j)}] ) rij

(7)

where rij is a unit vector pointing from the ith astrophsical object to the jth object in the system. An inspection of equations (2) and (7) suggests that magnetic moments zi arising from the astrophysical dynamos are so constrained as to minimise AU with respect to various sets of possible { zi 1 , given a set of 1 si 1 . Now we consider an idealised situation of jus wo identical astrophysical objects, with precisely the same history, in a circular orbit. Consequently we can assumes1 =z2 =z and 3, =. & = 3. Let 0 and 0 represent the angle between sand r, and; and r respectively. For this extreme case no minima exists. However if instead we require 6U to vanish for this special case, w,: get

(8)
where y = 1 z 1, S = 13 I. Since by definition /J > 0 and real, one finds a surprising corollary: (i) if 0 > COS 4( l/3) than 0 < Cos- x/( l/3) and (ii) if 0 < Cos-d( l/3) then 0 5 COS J( l/3). Further, the factor in { ) of equation (8) is generally of the order of unity and as a consequence for such binary systems one reproduces relation (2).

CONCLUSION As such we conclude that the spin-spin interaction of astrophysical objects arising from the Lense-Thirring effect is likely to impose serious constraints on the astrophysical dynamos, in the sense explained above, and that the appearance of d/G/c in the ratio p/S for astrophysical objects does not point not to some yet unknown law of nature as suggested in references I-5, but is a natural consequence of general relativity and classical electrodynamics. In reference to the gravi-magnetic hypothesis, it should be pointed out the equation (3) is an approximate representation of the situation which corresponds to the minimisation, or vanishing, of AU given by equation (7). The latter contains in it the interaction between the mass current of rotating astrophysical bodies. Further, within the present framework, no magnetic moment is expected if an astrophysical object cannot support an

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MAGNETIC MOMENTS OF ASTROPHYSICAL OBJECTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

internal dynamo. And finally for the same reason, the laboratory experiments suggested on the basis of gravi-magnetic hypothesis in references I,3 and Sshould be expected to yield null results.

REFERENCES 1. P.M.S. Blackett, Nature 159,658 (1947). 2. H.A. Wilson, Proc. Roy. Sot. A 104, 104 (1923). 3. D.V. Ahluwalia and T.-Y. Wu, Lett. Nuova Cim. 23,406 (1978). Errata: lo- in the last two lines of p. 406 of this reference should read 10-l . 4. R.M. Muradyan, Astrofizika 14,439 (1978). 5. S.P. Sirag, Nature 278, 535 (1979). 6. C.T. Russel, Nature 272, 147 (1978) 7. V. De Sabbata and M. Gasperini, Lett. Nuovo Cim 27, 133 (1980); also see, 38, 93 (1983). The following added to the completed manuscript: A.O. Barut and T. Gornitz, Founds. of Phy. 15, 433 (1985) discuss relation (2) within framework of Kaluza Klein theories. 8. J.H. Piddington, Cosmic Electrodynamics (1969). 9. F.C. Michel, Rev. Mod. Phy. 54, 1 (1982). 10. J.D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics (1975). 11. W. Rindler, Essential Relativity (1977). 12. H. Thirring anbJ. Lense, Phys. Z. 19, 156 (19 18). 13. L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, The Classical Theory of Fields (1975). 14. To obtain the total intera@ion energy in the weak field approximation this 6U should of course be added to U(Newton) = -GM, M2 /r. 15. M. Surdin, Ann. Fond. L. de Broglie 5, 127 (1980) however claims positive results for the proposed laboratory experiment.