The following is the second draft of a new and formative hypothesis (5 hours old) for explaining one category of LENR results involving nickel as the active host; and in particular the Arata-Zhang results and numerous replications.
Arata demonstrated early-on a stronger effect in nickel than in palladium - but an alloy of primarily nickel is best of all. The key to that success is probably related to nanostructure - but it highlights the fact that nickel is very likely to be the better choice for host, especially when alloyed with a few percent Pd, for the reasons independent of geometry, to be outlined below. The combination of nanostructure, isotope enrichment, Casimir cavity enhancement and outside energy input can be expected to push the results of a hybrid reactor much closer to the level of what will hopefully be a commercial application. Some background material may be found in Scientific American, June, 1995, pp 90-95 in an article by Sam M. Austin & George F. Bertsch, entitled "Halo Nuclei." The sub-title is important: "Nuclei having excess neutrons or protons teeter on the edges of nuclear stability, known as "drip lines." The first relevant fact is that over two-thirds of natural nickel is the isotope Ni-58, which has very high nuclear stability - but there is a <1% isotope which is 6 a.m.u. or over 10% heavier and which has been little studied except in cosmology. There is a boundary line that shows up on a graph of the periodic table, suggesting the stability of isotopes which vary from the trace are going to be marginally unstable, and it is called the drip line. A "halo" is descriptive of some nuclei above the drip line, which will express a much larger apparent radius than normal for reasons which are not well understood. These nuclei will have a few neutrons or protons that can be located in a transient state well beyond the normal radius, and which would appear to exhibit a halo, if they could be seen. There is a QM probability of some neutrons in halo atoms getting near the limit of strong-force influence, especially under the stress of charge incursion. Hydrogen (proton or deuteron), or any charge incursion into the "Coulomb well" of the nickel halo atom will suffice to cause stress. Another possible route to disrupting the stability of Ni-64 could be time distortion or relativistic effects inside a Casimir cavity. Ni-64 isotope spans unstable Ni-63 in the range of stability. Ni-63 is a beta emitter with a fairly short half-life. If 'heavy nickel' loses a neutron by a number of routes, from the expanded halo due to charge incursion or a Casimir effect - it then goes to Ni-63. If it decays all in one step it will give up a fast ~67 keV electron and no gamma, other than secondary; following which it will transmute into to the most abundant isotope of copper Cu-63. This is very elegant for a number of reasons relating to experimental findings. For better understanding some aspects of LENR involving nickel and its alloys, and the prior range of experiments covering the past 19 years, it is important to keep in mind these two facts: that nearly one percent of natural nickel is 10% heavier than the majority isotope, and the second is that nickel is a facile proton conductor. The net result of this overlap is that the heavy isotope could be a previously unrecognized "fuel" for the many claims of excess heat or LENR in nickel, and possibly even some of the excess seen energy seen in Mills' experiments. Another implication which is to be put forward here: nickel LENR was once as unpredictable as the same reactions based on palladium - possibly even more unpredictable, up until the Arata nickel alloy was developed. That past unpredictability could be related to a natural variation in the isotope ratio of Ni-64 which has already been noticed in cosmology. However, the reliability of the Arata replications indicates that a nanopowder alloy with zirconia and a small amount of palladium can solve any problem related to variable, or lower isotopic ratio. What is unknown at this juncture is if the Arata-type results can be enhanced and taken to a much higher level (higher delta-t) with an isotope enrichment. The energy released from this decay is very low for a nuclear reaction, and the ash leaves little tell-tale trace of transmutation, since copper so ubiquitous and there is no remnant radioactivity. This can explain why the indicia of the reaction are hard to spot. On the positive side, it means that nickel has several hundred times more energy per atom than is found in chemical reactions - since about one percent of it will have about 67 KeV of mass-energy. The average is over 600 eV per atom, and even if only a fraction of it can be easily used in a given time frame, this can serve to explain mysteries which other theories fail to explain. It should be noted now that the appearance of helium from catalyzed D+D fusion will also be more easily explained with this hypothesis, than with almost any other since the beta can be described as a particularly good catalyst at this energy level. Most curiously, in a few cosmology references, there is known to be an overabundance of heavy nickel in meteorites. What does that imply? Well, it can explain past variability in experimental results. Some nickel mines, such as famous Sudbury mines in Canada, exploit the impact sites of an ancient meteorite impact. I cannot find a reference to Canadian nickel being higher in Ni-64 - and if it is not then this detail of the hypothesis may not hold up. But the point is that there could be variation in natural nickel, and in the isotope ratio of fabricated electrodes, based on the origin of the metal. The best part of the hypotheses is that it is easily falsifiable. If a side by side experiment involving nickel cathodes - one of which is enriched in Ni-64 and the other is normal or depleted - serves to demonstrate a significant variation in energy release, favoring the heavy nickel, then that is a prima facie case. Another test would be to look for copper as the transmutation product. But the complete hypothesis goes beyond the fact that a fraction of the net energy release is a result of non-fusion beta decay. The complete hypothesis envisions two steps - a driver, which is beta decay, and then subsequent fusion which is (substitute) muon catalyzed or fast electron catalyzed, depending on which aspect one chooses to emphasize. Once again, although this hypothesis can sound suspiciously like Widom-Larsen theory, it is far removed from what they are claiming; there is little neutron involvement in the active stages, there is ample helium expected from real fusion, and in fact the beta decay itself would be the driver for deuterium fusion as a secondary step in LENR. If there is a cold neutron (displaced from the halo) it will decay in situ and release another catalytic electron. The result of that tertiary step will be a proton which is seen with helium, and which will eventually poison the reaction unless steps are taken to remove them. Once again, this would be a two step process, where indeed the main energy comes from catalyzed deuterium fusion, thus explaining helium ash, but to less of a degree than if it was all due to "only fusion". A substantial part of the energy required for fusion is being derived from the "driver" which is in situ beta decay of Ni-64 which has been disrupted by charge incursion to shed a neutron and become Ni-63 which is a beta decays species. This assumes that the effective mass of the beta particle (fast electron) could occasionally either range into that of a muon, due to relativistic effects - some of which can be engendered by Casimir cavity confinement. It could well turn out that this the type of reaction is actually based on what can be labeled as (substitute muon) catalyzed deuterium fusion. or else the catalysis is a effected by a near electron capture giving us the D-e-D scenario, which is another way to look at the dynamics. Instead of "denying fusion" this beta-decay hypothesis explains fusion via a very specific isotope - heavy nickel (Ni-64). Jones
