Books/Editing

Special Issue 2020: Galactic Rotation and Dark Matter

Face-on view of spiral galaxy NGC 1566: The Spanish Dancer Spiral Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & Copyright: Leo Shatz. Public domain photo.
Edge-on view of a warped spiral galaxy. ESO 510-13. Image Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), C. Conselice (U. Wisconsin/STScI) et al., NASA. Public domain photo. Warps are explained by the existence of two perpendicular axes of rotation in the comprehensive review of galactic rotation (https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies8020047) in this Special Issue.

A 2020 special issue edited for the journal Galaxies “Debate on the Physics of Galactic Rotation and the Existence of Dark Matter,” is summarized online with a video introduction. This issue contains three inverse models that quantitatively explain galactic rotation without invoking enormous, ad hoc amounts of dark matter, which using Newton’s law.

The inverse models address the following geometries (listed in order of total mass computed from rotation curves, with no free fitting parameters). All three inverse approaches account for the the distribution of galaxy mass differing from spherical, which shape is used in most forward, fitting models, but does not describe galaxies (pictured above):

  • Equatorial Plane by Sipols and Pavlovich (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4434/8/2/36). This shape is explored by many astronomers. 214 galaxies were studied and shown to not contain dark matter. Mass was calculated and then compared to luminosity as a cross check.
  • Oblate by Criss and Hofmeister (https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies8010019). This shape, first studied by Moulton circa 1900, also describes elliptical galaxies, permitting application to a wide range of galaxy types.
  • Disk by Feng (https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4434/8/1/9). This shape for spiral galaxies is of particular interest to astronomers. Inspired by the ideas of Ken Nicholson and Louis Marmet, Feng and Gallo formulated a closed form disk model that extracts mass without arbitrary fitting parameters. They showed that the simple formula based on Keplerian dynamics—often been used for demonstrating the “missing mass” in rotating galaxies—is inappropriate for describing galaxies of disk shape.

Recent Books

Heat Transfer 2019

“Measurements, Mechanisms, and Models of Heat Transport” published in 2019 covers the basics of heat transfer and its tie to spectroscopy and thermodynamics, with copious data. The book improves upon existing explanations of the fundamentals, as shown in the figure below:

Simplified sketch of plane polarized light, based on Chapter 8 by A. M. Hofmeister, E.M. Criss, and R.E. Criss in Hofmeister (2019). This chapter also derives the blackbody curve using classical physics. See Figures 8.4 and 8.5 for details. If plane-polarized light behaved as if in the textbook picture (top), then energy is sequentially destroyed and created as the wave progresses.

Geophysics and Planetary Science 2020

For application of the above ideas, see my 2020 book “Heat Transport and Energetics of the Earth and Rocky Planets” This book could not have been produced without the help of my long-term collaborator Bob Criss, as shown by the table of contents (below).