Eric-- One additional idea.
What we have been considering is the formation of 8Be and its decay into two alpha particles with only spin energy involved. As I have suggested before, two anti-parallel spin He* particles may form in adjacent fcc Pd lattice locations that are stuffed tight with 2 deuterium nuclei. The net spin of the two new He* particles is high--24 mev--but amounts to 0 net angular momentum when considered as one item. However, each He* within the coherent system may be able to distribute its spin energy to the electrons in the vicinity, much as may happen with the decay of the 8Be nucleus. The two LENR processes would be similar in this regard. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Walker To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 9:28 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:mainstream physics paper bout the Hot Cat, co-author Andrea Rossi Hi Bob, The possibility you've been drawing attention to, that the result of the decay of the [8Be]* compound nucleus into two 4He nuclei with little linear momentum and a great deal of angular momentum makes for an interesting thought experiment. Out of curiosity, I calculated the energy that would be needed to break up an alpha particle into either tritium and a proton or 3He and a neutron, which would be the reverse of these two reactions: 3He + n → 4He + Q (19.3 MeV) t + p → 4He + Q (20.5 MeV) As I understand it, this implies that angular momentum sufficient to produce ~ 19 MeV of centripetal force would be needed to break apart a 4He into either 3He and a neutron or tritium and a proton. This suggests that a 4He can carry a large amount of angular momentum before it is likely to break apart. (I assume the process is probabilistic and that the force needed lies along a distribution.) Further comments inline. Eric On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 1:35 PM, Bob Cook <[email protected]> wrote: However, I know of know reason why the light nuclei cannot have any spin quantum number--high or low. Any spin quantum is available. Further to the thought experiment, I think we should make a clear distinction between two types of "spin" -- there's the actual spinning motion of a nucleus (e.g., 4He), and there is the spin state of the nucleus. At higher rates of rotation, a heavy nucleus such as an isotope of nickel will reconfigure into a higher spin state, presumably through deformation. In such a state a photon may be emitted, with the nucleus relaxing into a lower spin state. Here my mental model is of neodymium magnets spinning around in a clump. When they snap together into a lower-energy configuration, a photon is emitted through the movement of the magnets as they snap together. The photon is emitted in a direction and carries away energy in such a way as to slow the angular movement of the spinning nucleus a little (by the amount of energy carried away by the photon). The participants involved in such a transition are the nucleons, and the energy of the photon that is emitted will correspondingly be in the keV or MeV range, which is in the nuclear range. A light nucleus, such as 4He, does not have a bound excited state. My understanding is that it cannot deform under high angular momentum into a higher energy state which will emit a photon when it relaxes. The 4He will either break apart into lighter constituents under centrifugal forces or it will not. But I'm guessing that the actual moment-to-moment velocity of the 4He about its axis of motion is in principle a continuous quantity. If this is true, perhaps the energy could be released to the environment in small amounts. Where the thought experiment gets interesting is in the supposition that you and others have already offered in this thread, that charged body such as a 4He nucleus that is spinning at an incredible rate will set up a magnetic field. This magnetic field could disturb nearby electrons, causing them to emit lower energy photons in the process. Although I do not see anything special in the 7Li+p to 8Be transition that has been proposed (and note Jones's point about the gamma that would be omitted in the process), I think the more general notion of the energy of a nuclear transition somehow being deposited in angular momentum and then released in small amounts is a very interesting one.
