Jan-Åke Schweitz

Jan-Åke Schweitz Home Page

Jan-Åke Schweitz was born on July 1, 1945 in the small town of Örnsköldsvik in northern Sweden. For some 40 years now I have been married to Ewa-Lena Schweitz, and we have one daughter: Erika Schweitz. Today we enjoy pensioners’ life in the small community of Berthåga in Uppsala. Erika studied sociology at University of Texas in Austin, USA, during 2014/15 and presently studies on master level at Uppsala University.

 

I hold a position of Professor Emeritus in Materials Science / Microsystems Technology (MST, also called MEMS) at Uppsala University. My email address is:

 

jan-ake.schweitz@angstrom.uu.se

 

My CV is found at:

 

http://ja-schweitz.se/onewebmedia/CV%20Jan-Ake%20Schweitz.pdf

 

The scientific activities of the MST division (founded by me in the 1980’ies) at the Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, are described at the website:

 

http://www.teknik.uu.se/mikrosystemteknik/

 

However, the present homepage is mostly dedicated to a completely different field of science, which has been an advanced hobby activity of mine during my retirement. This field can be entitled:

 

Dark source flux (DSF) cosmology

 

The DSF theory deals with the fascinating phenomenon of the metric expansion of the universe.

 

Some people believe that this issue is satisfactorily explained by the expansion model ΛCDM , which is one part of the Standard Model of Cosmology, which in turn is based on the theory of General Relativity (GR). But there are many serious contradictions and obscurities in this expansion model; not so surprising in view of the fact that it is essentially based on a picture of the curved-metric universe prevailing in the 1920-ies, and on the pioneering work of Alexander Friedmann and others at that time. Much has happened since then, warranting a reconsideration of the basic ideas on which the theory was founded. Still, the most celebrated expansion results available today – the WMAP and the Planck values – are evaluated by means of the ΛCDM model with its inherent shortcomings, and cosmologists tend to judge other cosmological models by comparing with the allegedly more ‘correct’ ΛCDM model.

 

It is not easy to convince the cosmology community that the prevailing GR-based standard expansion model suffers from disturbing problems . So-called ‘non-standard cosmology’ has a bad reputation, especially after Fred Hoyle’s persistent defence of the Steady State Theory, which incorrectly rejected a Big Bang beginning of the universe. In a comprehensive Wikipedia review of non-standard cosmology it is stated: ‘Today, heterodox non-standard cosmologies are generally considered unworthy of consideration by cosmologists…’ The DSF theory challenges this profoundly unscientific attitude by pointing out some obvious shortcomings of the standard expansion model and by suggesting non-standard ways to avoid them.

 

Originally, the expansion was explained by the idea that the universe is ‘falling freely outwards’ in a spacetime featuring open, hyperboloid curvature; thus the expansion cannot be explained without curved-metric GR. Recent WMAP and Planck data indicate, however, that the observable part of the entire universe is flat-metric even in a GR framework, suggesting that the expansion could be handled without curved-metric GR. Within GR, the expansion is emulated by introducing a cosmological constant Λ in Einstein’s field equation. This constant effectively corresponds to some strange repulsive interaction that increases in strength with distance, in contrast to all known gauge interactions which decrease with distance. Thus, Λ is of obscure physical significance, but it does emulate flat-metric expansion.

 

The DSF theory claims that, in the flat-metric, uniform universe approximation, a new set of initial assumptions – consistent with earlier and recent observations – results in a simple theory that is free-standing from GR. It readily explains the observed expansion features of the universe, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. In the DSF model all mass-energy elements – except photons and neutrinos – are embedded in the expanding flat metric and co-move with it, i.e. do not move relative to it. Photons and neutrinos move at the speed of light (or close to it) relative to the expanding flat metric, and their space-averaged densities drop off fast due to energy conversion (annihilation of radiation energy is not allowed in the DSF model). There is no reason to involve GR in this model. The expansion of the metric itself is a non-relativistic phenomenon (and therefore occurs at superluminal speed at distances large enough from any arbitrarily chosen reference point in space).

 

The basic hypothesis in the DSF theory is that the universe is inflated by a uniformly distributed source flux of dark energy – a dark source flux – generating the observed volume expansion. The theory predicts Big Bang and the existence of a ground level density of dark energy, permeating all space and being a physical manifestation of the invariant ground state space.

 

The effect of the dark source flux is vividly illustrated by the ‘Hubble Puddle metaphor’:

 

On a rainy day, imagine a shallow puddle of water in the street. The puddle grows in size as the rain keeps falling. Some leaves are floating on the surface of the puddle. We notice how the leaves drift apart metrically, due to the rain that uniformly expands the puddle. As seen from anyone of the leaves, all other leaves move away radially. No net forces act on the leaves. They are at rest relative to the most nearby water, but they still move apart since the water between them is expanded by the rain. They actually drift apart at an accelerating speed, due to the cumulative effect of the rain constantly falling over the growing area of open water between them. The rain expands the puddle but not the individual leaves, since these are held together by strong cohesive forces.

In this metaphor, the expanding water corresponds to dark energy, the leaves correspond to galaxies and galaxy clusters, and the agent behind the metric expansion is a uniformly distributed source flux: the rain, corresponding to the dark source flux.

This Hubble Puddle is a 2+1 dimensional miniature model of the metrically expanding universe.

 

The DSF theory is presented in an article posted on the DiVA archive:

 

Schweitz, J-Å, 2017, Dark source flux cosmology - An Occam's razor universe

DiVA archive: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-316911

Added values of the DSF model, compared with the ΛCDM model, are:

 

- Non-relativistic simplicity

- Tangible driving agent behind the metric expansion

- Dark energy identified as the kinetic expansion energy of the universe

- Flatness, horizon, and coincidence problems eliminated

- No inconsistent energy conservation criteria

- No adiabatic perfect fluid constraint

- No over-simplified and incoherent equations of state

- Expansion model in concise, closed mathematical form

- All expansion parameters numerically evaluated from merely two experimental parameters

- No best-fit procedures (as in the WMAP and Planck evaluations)

- Seamless connection between the Big Bang singularity and the ultimate state

- New intimate relation revealed between dark energy and other cosmic media

- Comprehensible cosmological arrow of time defined by the dark source flux

- Non-singular primordial state of the universe defined and related to the Planck unit system

- ' The worst theoretical prediction in the history of science' possibly explained