Axil, these are interesting posts that will stir our imagination. However, some of what you said doesn't ring true and some of it I just don't understand.
You said: *Rossi’s previous work experience includes the development of prototype thermionic converter, so he should know all about Rydberg matter.* I haven't seen this anywhere. I know that Rossi and Leonardo Corp worked on TE (Thermoelectric, not Thermionic) conversion for the US Military, but that was solid state Peltier effect devices. I worked for many years with Peltier devices and never once heard mention of Rydberg effects, because they are not involved in such devices. I don't think Rossi has any past experience with Rydberg matter and I have not seen where he mentioned this in association with his eCat technology. I think it is only your speculation that Rydberg matter is involved in his process. You said: *IMHO, both Rossi and DGT use pulsed application of heat as a way to control the proper hydrogen envelope temperature profile; that is to make sure that a cold zone is properly maintained.* Well, IMHO, Rossi and DGT both use resistive heaters incapable of providing "pulsed heat" due to the thermal mass. In fact, the high pressure H2 has tremendous heat capacity and will also make it hard to create thermal pulsing by any means. I don't believe short time-scale thermal pulses are being created as a stimulus. Early Rossi devices did not use his "frequencies" generator. That appeared to be an addition to help stimulate the reaction at a lower H2 pressure where the reaction had less tendency to run out of control. It is known that the reaction rate increases with temperature and with H2 pressure. The early eCat reactors were water cooled and used a stainless steel cell. The thermal resistance in the stainless shell allowed the temperature of the reactant/H2 to be at 400-600C while the water was only at 100C; however, it also meant that the ability to extract heat was limited by the same thermal resistance. Above a critical heat generation inside the cell, the water cooling could no longer pull out enough heat through the thermal resistance of the poorly conducting stainless to keep the temperature of the reactant from rising. This was the thermal runaway. This caused Rossi to operate at lower H2 pressures to keep the maximum heat generation below what he could pull out through the stainless thermal resistance, allowing him to control the temperature from going so high as to melt the nickel and eliminate the surface properties that stimulate the reaction. Unfortunately, operation on this threshold of LENR was tenuous when just based on keeping it at the right temperature. The reaction is somewhat chaotic (like noise) and it can quickly fall below the operational threshold when operated so close to threshold. Interestingly, DGT operates at noticeably higher H2 pressure, that in Rossi's case would cause a thermal runaway. DGT has found a means to rapidly "quench" the reaction (stop it) so that they can control the heat output. They can turn the quench on and off and get reaction pulses - as many as they like to get the heat output they want. I have some ideas on how they do the quenching - and it is not thermal. The Rydberg matter seems to be going in the wrong direction. Normal ground state atoms have a smaller mean orbital radius. Outside of this radius the atom appears net neutral. If you get inside of this radius, there is a strong electric field. To get fusion to occur, the nuclei must be much much closer than the the radius of the the ground state hydrogen orbital. The + nuclear charge is only screened as long as you are outside the orbital. In Rydberg atoms, the orbital is HUGE. This allows them to easily couple and form condensates. However, it also means that the nuclei cannot get as close to another nucleus as a ground state atom because the orbital is bigger. The instant you are inside the orbital you have the nuclear repulsion. From this perspective, Fran's Inverse Rydberg state (orbital smaller than ground state) makes more sense - it would allow the nuclei to become closer before the orbital is crossed exposing the repulsive electrostatic forces. I think the Inverse Rydberg "matter" would be natually less likely to form a condensate than a ground state atom due to the shrunken orbital which I think decreases the coupling coefficient. The Inverse Rydberg state would seem to fit better into a theory of the solid state effects inside the lattice of nickel or palladium and is going in the right direction to explain proton insertion into another nucleus. Rossi stated that his fuel is a Ni powder with MICRON dimensions - not nano. To that he adds a secret sauce, likely to be a nanopowder. This added nanopowder combined on the 1000x larger surface of the Ni powder may form islands of atoms that could each form a Rydberg like condensate on the top of the Ni. This in turn could stimulate the catalysis of H2 into H and funnel it into the Ni lattice. However, I don't believe the Rydberg formation is known to be the cause of the catalysis, but that would be an interesting examination. You said: *A Rydberg condensate can be engineered to vary in potency from very weak to extremely strong. * *Rossi has set the strength of his Rydberg matter to match the fusion of proton cooper pairs with nickel nuclei.* *On the other hand, the Rydberg matter in the LeClair reactor is extremely powerful.* I don't know what any of that means. The "dipole" of the Rydberg is just a measure of its electron orbital radius and essentially its ability to couple to other atoms by wrapping around them. The electron is very weakly bound and is moving relatively slowly. There is no "power" associated with it or a condensate of these atoms. There is no net charge exposure because such would mean it is an ion, not a Rydberg atom. There is no observable oscillation of charge, because that would cause EM radiation that would quickly cause the electron to drop to a lower energy state. What does "strength" of Rydberg matter, and "match the fusion of proton cooper pairs" mean? These don't make sense. While it may be possible that there is Cooper-pair like coupling of protons, no one has yet explained how, if this occurred, that the LENR transmutations are enabled. Twice the mass and twice the charge doesn't necessarily help. In the case of the LeClair reactor, the crystalline formation at extremely high pressure & mass density is interesting and it is at such tremendous pressure that, there is a large potential energy in its release. In the cavitation, plasmas are formed, and it would certainly be possible to find an intermediate form of matter (Rydberg) between the plasma state and the ground state for the atoms. It is not clear at all how this is complicit in LENR. I have not heard a plausible speculation of how Rydberg is complicit in the act of insertion of protons into another nucleus. So, even if there is a Rydberg condensate, how do you eliminate the "magic happens here" moment that causes the proton insertion into another nucleus? [BTW, I do believe that they are being inserted in some manner, but not necessarily as a Rydberg effect.]
