Magnetic field lines do not cross. Not even on the surface of the sun has a case of them crossing ever been observed. In fact, they are one of the causes for CME and flares as they do not cross containing the energy within until they are pushed aside. They will shift, compress, wiggle and squirm, but never cross.
That comes into play when historical data for previous pole shifts.
A pole shift is preceded by and followed by an chaotic shift in which multiple poles pop up. There doesn't appear to be any reason to it. Of course that is all predicated on magnetic dipoles, as in a north and south pole.
What it doesn't take into account is the possibility of a magnetic monopole. In the classic theories of electromagnetism, a monopole is ruled out by Maxwell equations. However, for unified and #superstring theory, a monopole particle is predicted. All searches for monopole particles to date have been centered around classical physics. However there are some folks who have recently begun to experiment based upon an assumption they are a quantum physics property and not part of Einsteins classical universe. We know now through the large hadron collider that sea quarks are real.
That is important given they are a temporary particle, that does not exist before or after the interaction in the final or initial state. They are also part of quantum field theory.
So why does that matter? It proves that at least in the quantumverse, there are in fact particles that only exist during initial interaction I.E. observation.
m.phys.org/news/2015-04-physicists-quantum-mechanical-monopoles.htmlThen that very understated discovery was made.
In a nutshell, magnetic dipole field lines may not be able to cross, but such a particle could bridge them. Such a bridge would rapidly seek stability, eliminating the particle the moment the interaction occurs. Changes in strength of the line in question would force a shift in the lines as again, they cannot cross.
So where do they come from? Therein gets into the gravity aspect. LIGO/VIRGO has recently confirmed gravity behaving as a wave.
www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/updates/ligo-virgo.cfmThat goes into a whole other kettle of fish, but for this purpose, there is a troupe of elephants standing in the room.
Einstein called the behavior of light acting as both a particle and a wave as "wave particle duality".
Sounds cool, but in reality it's his way of saying I've no idea why. In fact when pressed to explain why particles interact at a distance he called it "spooky action at a distance". Through his general and special relativity, he gave birth to quantum mechanics.
m.phys.org/news/2015-11-nist-team-spooky-action-distance.htmlwww.wired.com/2010/09/stringy-quantum/String theory meets quantum entanglement. Now go back to # and read again.
Part 2 of LIGO/VIRGO is the confirmation of the wave behavior. It's my assertion that gravitational waves behave just like light. Einsteins wave particle duality. To include the "spooky action at a distance" quantum mechanical aspects as well.
All of that long before we get into the potential graviton. A graviton is a hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitation in the framework of quantum field theory.
Putting all that together.
We know the sun flips poles every solar cycle. We know the earth does on an irregular basis. We know something has to cause it. We know gravity acts on every single thing. Light, matter, everything.
My postulate is that it's not caused directly from an outside magnetic force, but rather from gravitational pulse waves carrying a variety of particles such as gravitons and monopole particles.
Such pulses can also shed further light on solar cycles. In the face of the growing body of evidence mentioned above (which btw most of which has been empirically proven), it would be foolish to ignore the possibility. What the oppenheimer/electric universe hypothesis comes up short in facts on, the idea of a gravitational universe has in spades all the way down to earth's magnetic pole shifts.
An outside force yes, magnetic or electric highly unlikely. Gravity bends space, time, light, magnetic field lines, electric fields, everything. It's also intrinsically tied to everything with any momentum such as light/photons, magnetic fields, electrical fields, so forth.
I cannot imagine such a pervasive force of nature acting on one thing and not another. I suspect the SWARM satellites and their predecessors (THEMIS) are not getting the whole picture as a result.
Food for thought.