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Repulsive gravity has its origin in the 1939 article of Oppenheimer and Snyder which describes a collapsar, that is an idealized star of non-interacting material (dust) collapsing under its own gravity. The stellar material has a final state resembling a football, that is a significant part of it is concentrated in a thin surface shell. An interior pressure is exerted by the strong gravitational field, equivalent to a negative mass. However, the OS solution has been misunderstood, the shell's position being incorrectly identified with the "event horizon" in black-hole theory. While half the material is concentrated in a shell occupying a small fraction of the radius, some material is spread throughout the interior, unlike the concentration in a black hole's singularity. We deal with the singularity in density at the shell surface, by including Fermi pressure of degenerate electrons for a shell density comparable to a solar mass-sized white dwarf. Because the high-density region is concentrated in a shell, instead of at the centre as in a black hole, our conclusion is that repulsive gravity enables the existence of supermassive white dwarfs., Comment: 9 pages, 0 figures

Starting from the Oppenheimer-Snyder solution for gravitational collapse, we show by putting it into the harmonic coordinates, for which the distant Riemann metric is galilean, that the final state of collapse for a collapsed star of any mass, including the one thought to occupy the centre of our galaxy, has a finite radius roughly equal to its Schwarzschild radius. By applying an expression for the gravitational energy tensor, we are able to explain the concentration of stellar material in a thin shell close to the surface, which gives an explanation for why such a star does not undergo further collapse to a black hole. The interior of the star is characterized by a low density of the original stellar material, but, far from being empty, this region is occupied by a very high density of gravitational energy; this density is negative and the consequent repulsion is what produces the surface concentration of stellar material., Comment: 1 figure

This note gives a correction to the standard analysis of the delay pattern in the radio signals from a pulsar in a binary system; the same coordinate frame should be used for the transmission of the signal as for the motion of the pulsar in the field of its companion.

It is shown that the description of collapse given by the classic model of Oppenheimer and Snyder fails to satisfy a crucial matching condition at the surface of the ball. After correcting the model so that the interior and exterior metrics match correctly, it is established that the contraction process stops at the Schwarzschild radius, that there is an accumulation of particles at the surface of the ball, and that in the limit of infinite time lapse the density of particles at the surface becomes infinite. A black hole cannot form. This result confirms the judgements of both Einstein and Eddington about gravitational collapse when the collapse velocity approaches that of light., Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures

The main argument against the reality of the electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations is that they do not activate photon detectors. In order to meet this objection we propose a classical model of a photodetector which, in the simple case of a light signal with constant intensity, gives a counting rate which is a non-linear function of the intensity. For sufficiently large signal intensity, the counting rate is proportional to the intensity, in agreement with the standard quantum results, but there is a dark rate when the signal intensity is low., Comment: 14 pages, no figures

It is argued that, in order for the gravitational field to be propagated as a wave, it is necessary for it to satisfy a further set of field equations, in addition to those of Einstein and Hilbert, and these equations mean there is a preferred coordinate frame, called the Global Inertial Frame, giving rise to a unique metric . The implication is that a true gravitational field is not compatible with Einstein's Principle of Equivalence, which is in contradiction with his other fundamental concept of locality. The additional field equations ensure that gravitational collapse does not go below the Schwarzschild radius, thereby excluding the possibility of singular solutions (black holes) of the Einstein-Hilbert equations. Such solutions would also violate Einstein's locality principle.

It is shown that the Kapitza-Dirac effect with atoms, which has been considered to be evidence of their wavelike character, can be interpreted as a scattering of pointlike objects by the periodic laser field., Comment: 6 figures

We demonstrate that the phenomenon known as Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion is really an amplification, in a nonlinear crystal pumped by a laser, of certain pairs of modes of the electromagnetic zeropoint field. The demonstration is achieved by showing the existence of a related phenomenon, Spontaneous Parametric Up Conversion. This phenomenon, once observed, will cast doubt on the quantum-optical theory, which treats photons as the elementary objects of the light field. It will also lend greater credibility to the zeropoint-field description of optical entanglement phenomena. That description is based on the unquantized light field and is consistently local, in contrast with the nonlocal description of Quantum Optics.

In previous articles we have developed a theory of down conversion in nonlinear crystals, based on the Wigner representation of the radiation field. Taking advantage of the fact that the Wigner function is always positive in parametric down conversion experiments, we construct a local hidden variables model where the amplitudes of the field modes are taken as random variables whose probability distribution is the Wigner function. In order to achieve our goal we give a model of detection which is fully local but departs from quantum theory. In our model the zeropoint (vacuum) level of radiation lies below a threshold of the detectors and only signals above the threshold are detectable. The predictions of the model agree with those of quantum mechanics if the signal intensities surpase some level and the efficiency is low. This is consistent with the known fact that quantum mechanics is compatible with local realism in that case (a fact called the ``efficiency loophole''). Our model gives a number of constraints which do not follow from the quantum theory of detection and are experimentally testable.

We develop a local realist analysis of parametric down conversion, based on the recognition that the pump field, instead of down converting spontaneously, does so through its nonlinear coupling with a real zeropoint, or "vacuum" electromagnetic field. The theory leads tothe prediction of a new phenomenon - that, in addition to the main down-conversion rainbow, there is a satellite rainbow, whose intensity is about 3 per cent of the main one. Confirmation of this prediction will call seriously into question the current description of the light field in terms of photons. The present article extends the analysis of its predecessors (this archive, numbers 9711029 and 9712001) to take account of the pump's polarization>, Comment: See also http://www.keyinnov.demon.co.uk

Parametric down conversion (PDC) is widely interpreted in terms of photons, but, even among supporters of this interpretation, many properties of the photon pairs have been described as "mind-boggling" and even "absurd". In this article we argue that a classical description of the light field, taking account of its vacuum fluctuations, leads us to a consistent and rational account of all PDC phenomena. "Nonlocality" in quantum optics is simply an artifact of the Photon Concept. We also predict a new phenomenon, namely the appearance of a second, or satellite PDC rainbow., Comment: See also http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9711029 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9711046 http://www.keyinnov.demon.co.uk

We have shown that all "single-photon" and "photon-pair" states, produced in atomic transitions, and in parametric down conversion by nonlinear optical crystals, may be represented by positive Wigner densities of the relevant sets of mode amplitudes. The light fields of all such states are represented as a real probability ensemble (not a pseudoensemble) of solutions of the unquantized Maxwell equation. The local realist analysis of light-detection events in spatially separated detectors requires a theory of detection which goes beyond the currently fashionable single-mode photon theory. It also requires us to recognize that there is a payoff between detector efficiency and signal-noise discrimination. Using such a theory, we have demonstrated that all experimental data, both in atomic cascades and in parametric down conversions, have a consistent local realist explanation based on the unquantized Maxwell field. Finally we discuss current attempts to demonstrate Schroedinger-cat-like behaviour of microwave cavities interacting with Rydberg atoms. Here also we demonstrate that there is no experimental evidence which cannot be described by the unquantized Maxwell field. We conclude that misuse of the Photon Concept has resulted in a mistaken recognition of "nonlocal" phenomena., Comment: See also quant-ph 9711029, 9711030, 9711042 and http://www.keyinnov.demon.co.uk

We continue the analysis of our previous articles which were devoted to type-I parametric down conversion, the extension to type-II being straightforward. We show that entanglement, in the Wigner representation, is just a correlation that involves both signal and vacuum fluctuations. An analysis of the detection process opens the way to a complete description of parametric down conversion in terms of pure Maxwell electromagnetic waves., Comment: See also quant-ph/9711029 and quant-ph/9711030

In a series of articles we have shown that all parametric-down- conversion processes, both of type-I and type-II, may be described by a positive Wigner density. These results, together with our description of how light detectors subtract the zeropoint radiation, indicated the possibility of a completely local realist theory of all these processes. In the present article we show how the down-converted fields may be described as retarded fields, generated by currents inside the nonlinear crystal, thereby achieving such a theory. Most of its predictions coincide with the standard nonlocal theory. However, the intensities of the down converted signals do not correspond exactly with the photon pairs of the nonlocal theory. For example, in a blue- red down conversion we would find 1.03 red "photons" for every blue one. The theory also predicts a new phenomenon, namely parametric up conversion from the vacuum., Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. A See also http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9711029 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9712001 http://www.keyinnov.demon.co.uk

The phenomenon of parametric down conversion from the vacuum may be understood as a process in classical electrodynamics, in which a nonlinear crystal couples the modes of the pumping field with those of the zeropoint, or "vacuum" field. This is an entirely local theory of the phenomenon, in contrast with the presently accepted nonlocal theory. The new theory predicts a hitherto unsuspected phenomenon - parametric up conversion from the vacuum., Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters See also http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9712001 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/9711046 http://www.keyinnov.demon.co.uk