On Thu, Jan 10, 2013 at 12:16 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: There is a third problem. Fast deuterons would be expected to show the same > reaction products as one gets from hot fusion, and there is not much > evidence > that this happens. >
By products, I think you mean gammas, neutrons and tritium? I think Ron attempts to address the problem of gammas by having the deuterons react in the vicinity of the "spectator" palladium nucleus -- the palladium nucleus ends up sharing in the momentum of the daughter alpha, so (somehow) there is no gamma. I am not sure how Ron addresses the problem of the normal branching ratios giving rise to neutrons and tritium (d+d -> t+p, d+d -> 3He+n). Perhaps he must rely on the "enhancement" brought about by the deuterons being at the classical turning point to make the usually minuscule 4He branch dominant. Assuming this branch can be strengthened like that, for Ron's explanation to work, then, it seems like all d+d interactions will have to occur in close proximity to palladium atoms. There does seem to be some magic, here. If I remember correctly, Peter Hagelstein suggests a limit of 20 keV on all particles in the system, in order to avoid having a fast particle bump into a deuterium nucleus and then as a result having two deuterium nuclei bumping into one another and yielding a neutron. So Ron's theory seems to require that everything happen really close to the palladium atoms. Eric
