Regarding the several recent findings regarding the appearance of Carbon, which is found in the ash of several LENR experiments, together with such related findings as those of Iwamura of Mitsubishi, where12 nucleon transmutation predominates, and assuming that most of this carbon was NOT due to contamination, consider the BEC. There has been a recent flurry in the mainstream scientific press concerning new aspects of BEC condensation. Most do not specifically mention LENR, but there has been plenty of speculation in CF circles going back almost 15 years about a possible role of a new type of BEC condensation, at temperatures above cryogenic.
It is only a matter of time before cryogenics enters the cutting edge of LENR experimentation, and in anticipation of that, here is a somewhat surprising suggestion. Forget deuterium. Use helium instead. Deuterium is more easily loaded in metal of course, and helium is much, much harder to fuse in a plasma - but we should be advised to forget about the plasma model, for now. Shouldn't we already know that the plasma model can lead to false assumptions - to wit, 24 MeV gammas? One thing for certain is that NO form of LERN - is of the traditional plasma-type either in the fusion event or in the preconditions. Sure, helium is not amenable to loading by normal electrolysis, but that deficiency can be overcome - and may even become a feature (re: recent M.S. posting on Frankel defects). For instance, in the formation of defect cavities (micro-bubbles, with geometry in the important 50 nm range) - this is already commonly observed after helium loading by high-fluence ion implantation, in other technologies like semiconductors. Looking (way) ahead, this implantation can actually be accomplished 'in situ' as a periodic refueling step in a commercial LENR helium cell as a secondary feature. By "secondary" it is meant by the use of a small on-board accelerator in a working device. The small accelerator would be used to power a FEL (terahertz laser) in noraml operation. But why go to the extra effort? First, to back-track and restate some issues: BECs are formed of Bosons, integer spin particles, which category does include many atoms like helium and certain nuclei, including the deuteron nucleus. The D atom, electron and all, would not have a "net" integer spin, and would be a fermion, not a boson (even thought it may act as a boson in a metal matrix) but helium suffers not such limitation. Things are different within a metal matrix. Deuterium in a lattice is subject to the Pauli exclusion principle unless these confined deuterons don't have tightly bound electrons, which seems to be the case, and they are at least "virtual" bosons. But any way you cut it, helium is a boson and should be more efficient. As to the issue of lack of cryogenic temperature, I am also suggesting that confinement acts just as effectively as low temperature and that the important variable is the lack of kinetic freedom of movement at the instant of coherence. CF may be BEC-like for only a few picoseconds out of every second, and that is why it is ultimately based on "probability". I think using He instead of D2 will require cryogenics, but of a more modest variety - perhaps 150 K which tiny refrigerators can handle. Looking at all of these ideas in composite suggests a possible mechanism for cold fusion which actually liesnear the present-day BEC physics... except, that is, for the lack of gamma radiation following the fusion (which of course is a HUGE advantage). Side Note: In regard to the Iwamura paper and others where 12 nucleons seem to be "in-play" which is 3 alphas or six D atoms, then it seems that Helium may already be playing a transient and intermediary role, so why not optimize its role by completely eliminating the first step (which is deuterium) ? Jones
