The sun as colliding beam, betatron cosmic ray factory
A theory of cosmic ray production within the solar system (not extra-galactic) is presented. The sun's time variable magnetic flux linkage makes the sun (as well, perhaps, as Jupiter) a natural, all-purpose, betatron storage ring, with semi-infinite acceptance aperture, capable of storing and accelerating counter-circulating, opposite-sign, colliding beams. The puzzle of how positrons and anti-protons can be well represented at all energies, is explained, initially, by the low energy capture of particles of either sign by the sun's magnetic dipole field. Later, as the magnetic field bending has become negligible compared to the gravitational bending, both positive and negative beams will have survived the gradual transition from predominantly magnetic to predominantly gravitational bending. Later, anti-particles produced in QED beam-beam collisions of sufficiently high energy, are also accelerated. The high quality of cosmic ray data collected over recent decades, at steadily increasing energies, especially by the International Space Station (ISS), make the study of cosmic ray production mechanisms both timely and essential. The paper describes how longitudinal electric fields, explained by the Parker solar wind theory can enable the sun to serve as a ``booster'' accelerator of cosmic rays, increasing the maximum cosmic ray energies enough to produce the observed 13 orders of magnitude maximum particle energy and the energy flux needed to maintain the observed cosmic ray atmosphere equilibrium within the solar system. A steady state mechanism is described, based on semi-quantitative discussion of a relativistic Hamilton-Jacobi formalism, according to which the highest energy cosmic rays observed can have been produced by the Parker longitudinal electric field component, during fractionally brief, but periodic, circular or semi-circular turns centered on the sun.