In nuclear fission, the active particle which propagates the reaction is
of course the neutron. The identity crisis that we have dealt with in
LENR from the start becomes evident when we try to single out the active
particle or pseudo-particle, which is the most basic agent that
propagates and continues the reaction (in a situation such as
"heat-after-death" or the thermal runaway).
If nuclear fusion was indeed the source of energy of a runaway or
meltdown reaction (and close to a dozen have been reported) then we
should be able to identify an anomalous agent of some kind, but it is
not gamma radiation or neutrons, so we look for something completely
new. Beta particles (fast electrons) and alpha particle can also be
ruled out due to proportionate lack of secondary radiation
(bremsstrahlung). Yes, there appears to be a tiny amount of all, or any,
of the above in LENR at various times, but not coming close to
accounting for the emergent thermal gain of a runaway. This is gain far
above chemical and far below nuclear, which can cause a large amount of
stainless steel to melt, as happened at Thermacore but with no residual
radiation.
Thus the choices for the active agent in LENR are narrowed primarily to
the phonon, for those who follow some version of the Hagelstein theory,
or to EUV photons for those who follow Mills, or both. Holmlid has not
had a runaway so we can possibly eliminate the more exotic candidates.
Obviously, one parameter which distinguishes the runaway reaction is
strong Infrared light, also seen in Parkhomov "glow tube" and replications.
This brings up the field of optomechanics and more specifically "cavity
optomechanics" which studies the interaction between light and
mechanical movement. This also brings up the suggestion that with
resonance and coherence, both the photon and phonon can be merged
together into a hybrid or pseudo-particle. The "SPP" or surface plasmon
polariton has been a candidate for LENR active modality - which has been
talked about the most, but the SPP does NOT fit the circumstances
precisely. Actually it is a poor fit.
The plasmon, a quantum of plasma oscillation, does not really fit in the
circumstance of a condensed lattice reaction since there is technically
no plasma. The polariton does model strong coupling of electromagnetic
waves with an electric dipole, which can be present in the runaway but
"surface" does not model the a lattice effect. Thus SPP is one out of
three accuracy.
Moreover, phonons need to be included since mechanical vibration is more
fundamental to LENR than optics. Perhaps LENR needs its own specific
pseudo-particle, which vaguely resembles the SPP but only when combined
with the phonon and eliminating the "surface" feature.
Can we label this pseudo-particle as the PPP (phonon-plasmon-polariton)
instead of SPP?
As fate would have it, something like this PPP pseudo-particle has been
proposed, if not witnessed by generation of single phonons at gigahertz
frequencies in optoelectronics, where the single phonon has been
triggered by single photons in the near infrared. See:
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.234301
It would be intriguing to imagine that a pseudo-particle found in an
unrelated field has broader applicability and can function as the active
mediator in LENR ... either real or as metaphor.
As a real particle, we can probably model "dense hydrogen" as having all
the properties of a real PPP - functioning as a hybrid of all three
constituents: phonon, plasmon and polariton, reduced to the quantized state.
