-----Original Message----- From: Terry Blanton > It would seem to me that there might be an upper limit in the mass of a halo nucleus.
Could be, but why? Is that because no one has looked for it, or not? There is too little data on this subject to be sure. As we have discussed here before, there is a boundary line that shows up on a chart of the periodic table, suggesting the stability of isotopes which vary from it are going to be marginally unstable- the drip line. A "halo" is descriptive of nuclei above the drip line, which will express a much larger apparent radius than normal. These nuclei will have a "extra" neutrons or protons which can be located well beyond the normal radius, and would appear to exhibit a halo, if they could be seen. This is completely counter-intuitive with what we think we know about the strong force. One suggestion which flows from this is that a three-atom Efimov boson of atomic hydrogen would actually *form the halo* if it got near the one-and-only Ni nucleus of interest. And furthermore, on decay, one proton of the Efimov boson would be occasionally captured to result in 65Cu. Ni-64 is stable and has "6" extra neutrons, compared to 58Ni. The 58 isotope is over two-thirds of natural. These extra neutrons make the 64 isotope over 10% heavier than the majority isotope, which seems to be the largest percentage digression of all the elements (heavier than carbon) in the periodic table, if memory serves (which it often does not). To wax anthropomorphic, 64Ni "wants" more protons, even on "loan" (halo) and it wants them more than any other transition metal in the periodic table. At only one percent of natural nickel, 64Ni could still be the Rossi fuel, if the "30% rumor" was wrong, and it almost certainly is wrong, and if the extra copper (transmuted) is almost all 65Cu - which is what I suspect it is. There are still 6X10^21 atoms of 64Ni per mole of nickel. There is a good chance Rossi has actually had the ash tested for copper isotopes, already, but does NOT want anyone to know that 64Ni is the ONLY active isotope for the reaction. He could easily have figured this out by knowing the apparent ratio of 63Cu/65Cu in the ash. That would be valuable information, and part of his trade secret. I doubt that he will share it, in retrospect. Jones
