Why would it be easier, far easier in terms of applied force, to completely disintegrate a proton into quarks - using a laser - compared to fusing two deuterons in a plasma using extreme heat ? The answer is very likely related to the "EMC effect" which is in the Science News today (for other reasons).
Wiki sez: The EMC effect is the surprising observation that the cross section for deep inelastic scattering from an atomic nucleus is different from that of free nucleons. From this observation, it can be inferred that the quark momentum distributions in nucleons bound inside nuclei are different from those of free nucleons. This is unexpected, since the average binding energy of protons and neutrons inside nuclei is insignificant when compared to the energy transferred in deep inelastic scattering reactions that probe quark distributions. Imagine that! The strong force, which holds nucleons together is in fact much weaker than a deep inelastic scattering event instigated by a laser pulse. While over 1000 scientific papers have been written on the EMC effect and numerous hypotheses have been proposed, no definitive explanation for the cause of the effect has been confirmed. "Determining the origin of the EMC effect is one of the major unsolved problems in the field of nuclear physics." For that reason alone, major funding should be applied to the simple phenomenon of laser irradiation of dense hydrogen (aka the Holmlid effect). Here is a (poorly written) report of recent work on the EMC effect Correlated nucleons may solve 35-year-old mystery | | | | | | | | | | | Correlated nucleons may solve 35-year-old mystery A careful re-analysis of data taken at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility... | | |
