Dark Energy: Gravitational Time Dilation of Photons

[PrimeAxiom]

In the Gravitational Redshift process, a photon's wavelength is stretched and energy is lost by Gravitational Time Dilation, where time slowed for the photon and stretched or redshifted it's wavelength. This slowing of time would mean an expansion or stretching of space, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Couldn't the redshift in photons due to the expansion of the universe, actually be the cause of the expansion, and not a result of the expansion, by the same processes in the Gravitational Redshift process?

 

In other words, couldn't the energy lost by photons in our universe, due to gravitational time dilation and the consequent stretching of space, be the source of Dark Energy?

 

This would also neatly explain what actually happens to the lost energy of photons that have been redshifted.

 

Also, when you consider all of the different photons out there, across the entire spectrum, not just visible light, but high energy photons & all those nearly stretched out photons out in the intergalactic regions of space, left over from the beginning of the universe, I believe you have the amounts needed to explain Dark Energy.

 

Mike F.

Edited March 14, 2012 by PrimeAxiom

[AstroBuoy]

In the Gravitational Redshift process, a photon's wavelength is stretched and energy is lost by Gravitational Time Dilation, where time slowed for the photon and stretched or redshifted it's wavelength. This slowing of time would mean an expansion or stretching of space, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Couldn't the redshift in photons due to the expansion of the universe, actually be the cause of the expansion, and not a result of the expansion, by the same processes in the Gravitational Redshift process?

 

In other words, couldn't the energy lost by photons in our universe, due to gravitational time dilation and the consequent stretching of space, be the source of Dark Energy?

 

This would also neatly explain what actually happens to the lost energy of photons that have been redshifted.

 

Also, when you consider all of the different photons out there, across the entire spectrum, not just visible light, but high energy photons & all those nearly stretched out photons out in the intergalactic regions of space, left over from the beginning of the universe, I believe you have the amounts needed to explain Dark Energy.

 

Mike F.

 

I have been pondering this exact same concept for the past few weeks now as well, It's been plaguing my mind and I actually Googled this and found your post.

 

I am trying think of experiments to test this hypothesis, the only thing I can think of is to somehow manually stretch a photon, somewhere in the department of lasers might help, at my uni there is a major in BoS Photonics. But even then trying to measure if Dark energy is created would be difficult because the way we measure Dark energy is by the redshift of photons, so there are complications.

 

But I certainly agree, my notion of this was;

 

Since the universe is expanding faster and faster caused by Dark energy, what is fuelling this dark energy as the speed is increasing and not the same static growth of the universe. This would infer that more Dark energy is filling the voids of space to help expand it faster. So where is this Dark energy coming from?

 

I then began to think about, a trillion years from now how we've predicted that we will only be able to see our own galaxy and all other galaxies will be too far away from us to see their photons, what happens to a photon that never goes anywhere and is constantly travelling through space never reaching anything or being too far to have gravity pull on it, does the photon stop? Does it simply stretch out so far that it changes?

 

These compositions of thought lead me to think what if a photon being completely stretched out to its breaking point turns the photon inverse and instead of being a particle that is being pulled, to becomes a particle that pushes.

 

So in effect it pushes space at the rate of which it was being pulled because of the fact it has been stretched so thin that it can touch the fabric of the cosmos and is able to push it as if spacetime becomes like a sheet of silk and the photon becomes like a hand.

[PrimeAxiom]

I have been pondering this exact same concept for the past few weeks now as well, It's been plaguing my mind and I actually Googled this and found your post.

 

I am trying think of experiments to test this hypothesis, the only thing I can think of is to somehow manually stretch a photon, somewhere in the department of lasers might help, at my uni there is a major in BoS Photonics. But even then trying to measure if Dark energy is created would be difficult because the way we measure Dark energy is by the redshift of photons, so there are complications.

 

But I certainly agree, my notion of this was;

 

Since the universe is expanding faster and faster caused by Dark energy, what is fuelling this dark energy as the speed is increasing and not the same static growth of the universe. This would infer that more Dark energy is filling the voids of space to help expand it faster. So where is this Dark energy coming from?

 

I then began to think about, a trillion years from now how we've predicted that we will only be able to see our own galaxy and all other galaxies will be too far away from us to see their photons, what happens to a photon that never goes anywhere and is constantly travelling through space never reaching anything or being too far to have gravity pull on it, does the photon stop? Does it simply stretch out so far that it changes?

 

These compositions of thought lead me to think what if a photon being completely stretched out to its breaking point turns the photon inverse and instead of being a particle that is being pulled, to becomes a particle that pushes.

 

So in effect it pushes space at the rate of which it was being pulled because of the fact it has been stretched so thin that it can touch the fabric of the cosmos and is able to push it as if spacetime becomes like a sheet of silk and the photon becomes like a hand.

 

Very interesting questions and ideas indeed! Totally a different way to come at it. I too would like to know what happens to a photon totally stretched out.

 

Logically it seems that photons, all photons from very high to low energies, are likely the source of this Dark Energy, since lots of them are out and around there, and it is possible that they can lose energy into the fabric of space (as during gravitational time dilation).

 

There are lots of them out there since the Big Bang, in those intergalactic regions, coming from all sorts of angles and sources, to account for this energy. If gravitational time dilation, or ones your proposed are not the processes by which it happens, there simply most be some other one to explain how photons are fuelling the accelerated expansion of the universe.

 

I would also propose that Dark Energy could be sourced from the collisions of photons with specific other ones, or other particles. Again, photons would be the source.

 

Good to have a place to work this out.

Edited March 15, 2012 by PrimeAxiom

[shawnhcorey]

Somewhat related is how a light cone changes as it nears an event horizon (see image). Of course, if it changes with greater gravity, it should also change with lesser gravity (see image). The difference between the two is that the first has the light cone collapsing and the second has it rotating. In either case, when you look at the light cone very far away, the nearest light ray as rotated to the point where it is point straight up, meaning it can no longer reach us, ever. And it's this rotation that causes the red-shift of light.

[PrimeAxiom]

Is this not based on physics? Wonder why it was moved to speculations?

 

Gravitational Time Dilation wasn't understood perhaps.

 

In gravitational time dilation, photons do lose energy, and space is stretched, giving support to the idea that energy lost by photons in space can be the source for Dark Energy.

 

 

Is this really pseudoscientific? I'm didn't say God's behind Dark Energy or anything.

 

 

Just that the gravitational time dilation of photons from deep gravity wells to shallower gravity wells will leave a net lose of energy in space. To be a bit clearer about it. Since the photon will have less energy when it arrived, as from when it left the larger gravitational field, it's energy could very well have been left in space, as in the case of photon gravitational time dilation, where space was stretched to cause the gravitational redshift.

 

Here is a more solid explaination:

 

In General Relativity, a photon that looks like it was redshifted by the relative motions of galaxies, could actually have been gravitationally redshifted, by gravitational time dilation. The results would be the same. Supported here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/gratim.html#c1

 

There are a lot of photons (of all frequencies), out there, and they're all going through gravitational time dilation out there! All of them. And Galaxies put all kinds of photons out, like this one over achiever, http://scitechdaily.com/ultra-fast-outflows-are-common-features-of-black-hole-powered-galaxies/

 

 

Since there are a lot of photons out there going through gravitational redshifting, it's not a stretch into pseudo-science, to say, that is a lot of energy lost into space! In some places. Also, in other place there would be a gain of energy into space, during gravitational blueshifting, where photons arrive into deeper gravity wells, with more energy than they had, when they left the shallower gravity well.

 

Again I'd love any solid input, disputing or supporting anything.

 

For the last bit, I humbly conclude that the net lose of energy in photons going from higher gravitational fields (heavy galaxies) to lower gravitational fields (lighter galaxies) will have been lost into the stretching of space, again due to the gravitational time dilation of photons process during gravitational redshifting. The converse would also be true.

 

Again, not talking about black magic over here, just good ol' General Relativity stuff.

Edited March 16, 2012 by PrimeAxiom

[AstroBuoy]

Is this not based on physics? Wonder why it was moved to speculations?

 

Gravitational Time Dilation wasn't understood perhaps.

 

In gravitational time dilation, photons do lose energy, and space is stretched, giving support to the idea that energy lost by photons in space can be the source for Dark Energy.

 

 

Is this really pseudoscientific? I'm didn't say God's behind Dark Energy or anything.

 

 

Just that the gravitational time dilation of photons from deep gravity wells to shallower gravity wells will leave a net lose of energy in space. To be a bit clearer about it. Since the photon will have less energy when it arrived, as from when it left the larger gravitational field, it's energy could very well have been left in space, as in the case of photon gravitational time dilation, where space was stretched to cause the gravitational redshift.

 

Here is a more solid explaination:

 

In General Relativity, a photon that looks like it was redshifted by the relative motions of galaxies, could actually have been gravitationally redshifted, by gravitational time dilation. The results would be the same. Supported here: http://hyperphysics..../gratim.html#c1

 

There are a lot of photons (of all frequencies), out there, and they're all going through gravitational time dilation out there! All of them. And Galaxies put all kinds of photons out, like this one over achiever, http://scitechdaily....wered-galaxies/

 

 

Since there are a lot of photons out there going through gravitational redshifting, it's not a stretch into pseudo-science, to say, that is a lot of energy lost into space! In some places. Also, in other place there would be a gain of energy into space, during gravitational blueshifting, where photons arrive into deeper gravity wells, with more energy than they had, when they left the shallower gravity well.

 

Again I'd love any solid input, disputing or supporting anything.

 

For the last bit, I humbly conclude that the net lose of energy in photons going from higher gravitational fields (heavy galaxies) to lower gravitational fields (lighter galaxies) will have been lost into the stretching of space, again due to the gravitational time dilation of photons process during gravitational redshifting. The converse would also be true.

 

Again, not talking about black magic over here, just good ol' General Relativity stuff.

 

Precisely what I would like to know.

 

My basis of interpretation was lateral thinking about the types of interactions between gravity and dark energy.

 

We know that the expansion of the universe is caused by this hypothetical named dark energy but we don't understand it's source nor it's origins.

 

A quote to substantiate my notions would be:

 

"A 2011 survey of more than 200,000 galaxies appears to confirm the existence of dark energy, although the exact physics behind it remains unknown."

source: Click Here For Source.

 

Thinking about it's origins related to what possibilities can arise from other actions is precisely what science is about, as Richard Dawkins once

 

said and, I am paraphrasing this, "The more we learn about the universe, the more queer we discover it really is." , The fact that we simply

 

don't know means we need to set up a model and test it to be deductive and then find it error-nous. Yet currently not much is talked about

 

in terms of discovering the source of dark energy. I would love for this topic to open up and for people to build upon this notion with some

 

basis from their own professions.

[PrimeAxiom]

Added to Explain Process in Quantum Field Theory & Quantum Mechanics:

 

Following this photon along its path between these two gravity wells, and looking at it from the prospective of the Quantum Field Theory, as this photon is undergoing gravitational red-shifting, it would seem that as this photon is losing energy, and having its frequency red-shifted, it would be losing quantum packet(s) of energy as it is being gravitationally red-shifted. This photon would be losing quantum packets at a rate determined by its travel through curved space. The more space is stretched, the more quantum packets of energy are lost by the photon, at a quicker rate, undergoing gravitational red-shifting due to gravitational time dilation. If a photon is received with less energy than when it arrived, those quantum packets are still out there, along its path.

 

Seems that as this photon is losing energy during gravitational time dilation, the photon is losing quantum energy packets, which result in stretched space (more than it already was!) and a stretched frequency (red-shift). These lost quantum packets of energy are left in space when the photon is received with less energy, in a shallower gravity well, due to gravitational red-shifting. Seems this is the result when applying quantum mechanics & quantum field theory to the travelling photon between these 2 different gravity wells.

 

 

 

[PrimeAxiom]

Powerful Supporting Argument::

 

Seems Gravitational-Red Shift is Confused with Doppler Effect.

 

Explaining Red-Shifting in Photons With Special Relativity:

 

point O: origin point of emitted photo, in Galaxy GlxO

point R: receiving point of photon, in Galaxy GlxR

 

GlxO, O ---------->----------------R, GlxR

 

Suppose:

 

Observer O (ObserO) at GlxO: is moving away from point O at speed RS, relative to GlxO

 

Observer R (ObserR) at GlxR: is moving away from point O at speed RS, relative to GlxO

 

So, we have that ObserO & ObserR are in the same reference frame, relative to GlxO.

 

So, as ObserO is moving away from point O, ObserO sees the emitted photon red-shifted by amount FRS.

 

ObserR would also see the same amount of red-shift in the photon's frequency, FRS, because they are in the same frame of reference, relative to GlxO.

 

Makes perfect sense.

 

For General Relativity however, the standard convention for explaining gravitational red-shifting, & the measuring of a photon's energy before & after its emission, seems to use the exact same principles as those used to explain red-shifting by the doppler effect in Special Relativity.

 

The exact same scenario as above, with different observers measuring different energies in different frames of reference, is used. The result is the same, that there is no energy lost by the photon, just different measurements due to different reference frames.

 

However, this photon is actually travelling through a gravitational field from point O to point R.

 

We know photons are effected by gravitational fields (bend around heavy objects in space).

 

=> Lets say GlxO is relatively more massive than GlxR.

 

If point O begins at a point, in a gravity well of GlxO, that is relatively deeper than the gravity well of point R, the frequency of the photon would actually be measured differently for the same observers, ObserO & ObserR, since both observers are travelling in 2 different gravitational fields , & photon is undergoing different gravitational red-shifting at those 2 points.

 

Does this not mean that the frequency of the photons changes, and that it actually arrives with less energy, since experienced an net of gravitational red-shifting?