Bob,
Mills, as we know - avoids deuterium like the plague and does not want to see anything nuclear … matter of fact, it would not surprise me if he used deuterium-depleted water, and took other extreme steps to completely avoid any sign of fusion. For instance, Mills may use silver, instead of zinc, as the preferred catalyst - to avoid 65Zn, which would be expected if zinc was used (and Zn is preferred otherwise, having a better Rydberg fit at low ionization.) As for Holmlid, since he uses deuterium and his reaction occurs in a small spot – which is the focal point of the laser beam, there is not much chance for a secondary reaction to provide muon catalyzed fusion, since the muons do not form instantaneously. Otherwise neutrons should be seen, as you say. For Holmlid, the muons are forming following pion decay, by which time they are dispersed from the reactor by a significant distance. What we would like to see (from the theoretical perspective) is the SunCell being run on heavy water. But… catch-22… that could cost Mills billions of dollars – if neutrons were observed, thus negating his IP. From: Bob Higgins If large quantities of muons are being produced, would you not expect to see the normal branches for muon catalyzed fusion to occur around it? These would be clearly detectable as 2.45 MeV neutrons for D2 gas or high energy 14 MeV neutron emission if the muons were to impact on a D-T gas mix. Note that D-T gas has a very high probability of muon catalyzed fusion. An ampule of D-T gas might actually be the quintessential muon detector - look for neutrons coming from the muon catalyzed fusion of D-T. Jones Beene wrote: For those who suspect that the Holmlid effect and the Mills effect are related, no matter what the proponents of each may think, here is a further thought from the fringe … about one of the possible implications. Holmlid has suggested that a very high flux of muons can be produced by a subwatt laser beam. Mills uses an electric arc and will probably offer a real demo of the Suncell® at some point. No one doubts that it works but an extended demo will be needed… therefore, even if everything seen thus far is little more than PR fluff, we could have a worrisome situation in response to a much longer demo. Since Mills is applying higher net power to reactants (even if Holmlid’s laser provides more localized power) there is a chance that some portion of the energy produced escapes the sun-cell as muons. If Holmlid gets millions of muons per watt of coherent light, what will be the corresponding rate be from an electric arc? If anything like this scenario turns out to be the accurate, then any muons produced will decay at a predictable distance away from the reactor, thus they could have been missed by BrLP in testing thus far. The muon is an unstable fermion with a lifetime of 2.2 microseconds, which is an eternity compared to most beta decays. Ignoring time dilation, this would mean that muons, travelling at light speed, would be dispersing and decaying in an imaginary sphere about 600 meters from the reactor. Thus, the effect of radioactive decay could be significant at unexpected distance– and Mills may never had imagined that this is a problem. Fortunately, humans are exposed to a constant flux of muons due to cosmic rays, and the flux is well-tolerated. Nevertheless, this detail is worth noting – and should Mills or his associates start to feel a bit ill from the exposure – possibly an unseasonal sun tan, then we can identify a culprit. The effects could be felt more in a remote office - than in the lab … which is curious.
