On Aug 1, 2007, at 5:25 AM, R.C.Macaulay wrote:
Horace wrote..
Yes. The wave function of the electron changes depending on the
fields it is in and thus also its proximity to other charged
particles. Concepts for engineering are described in:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/DeflationFusion.pdf
which is now in Draft #1 state.
Howdy Horace,
Have to spend more time thinking and re-reading your pdf file on
deflation fusion.. hmmm. Congratulations on a readable first draft.
Comment.. please expand on the "magnetic" influence on the freee
electron.
I didn't really address free electrons except when in their role as
ionically bound electrons, in which case their wave functions are in
the form of partial orbitals. Genuinely free electrons in the
lattice would be a rare thing I would think. Conduction band
electrons are the closest thing to them.
What is interesting about magnetic fields is the ability to make
strange non-quantum like electron orbitals, called Rydberg orbitals.
Atoms having these orbitals are called Rydberg atoms. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rydberg_atom
There is a neat little simulation of such orbitals there. These atoms
have high quantum numbers, which are typically due to exciting
radiation. However, unexcited atoms can be placed in Rydberg states
by extreme magnetic fields.
It is interesting that there can be Rydberg related nuclear - EM
connections, raising questions about the importance of some kinds of
heavy isotopes in CF lattices:
PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
Number 500 August 31, 2000 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
NUCLEAR ENERGY USED TO EXCITE ATOMS. A
multinational team of physicists has observed for the first time a
process in which the energy freed up by a nucleus relaxing to a
lower state is used to excite an electron in the surrounding atom to a
higher energy state. Normally atomic and nuclear phenomena are
separate, mainly because the energies typifying atomic transitions
(an electron moving from one quantum state to another) is measured
in electrons volts (eV) or less, whereas analogous nuclear transitions
are typically on the order of thousands or millions of eV. But for
some heavy ions, which have been relieved of many their electrons
(making the attraction between the nucleus and the remaining
unshielded electrons all that much more powerful), the spacing
between atomic states can actually exceed the spacing between
nuclear states. In the case of a Bordeaux-Gif sur Yvette-Darmstadt-
Orsay-Manchester-Caen-Stanford experiment (Jean-Francois
Chemin, Center for Nuclear Studies at Bordeaux-Gradignan,
[EMAIL PROTECTED], 011-33-55-712-0874) conducted at the
GANIL accelerator in France, tellurium atoms, with 47 or even 48
electrons removed, are smashed into a target. In these collisions,
energy from the nucleus serves to promote a deeply bound electron
(in the 1s electronic, or "K shell" state) into a barely bound
"Rydberg" orbit. This observation has extraordinary implications.
It means that energy can pass resonantly between the nuclear and
electronic parts of the atom by a resonant process similar to that
which operates between an inductor and a capacitor in an LC circuit.
Furthermore, this transfer of energy is suspected to play a role in the
anomalous lifetime of certain nuclear species; thus the concept of
nuclear lifetime, normally thought to be immune from atomic
effects, has to be modified to take into account charge states of the
atom. If this is true then inside stars, where atoms often exist in an
ionized state, the lifetime of various nuclear species might well be
affected by this process of internal conversion between atomic
states, thus modifying the chain by which elements are synthesized
in the stellar environment. (Carreyre et al., Physical Review C, 1
Sept; see also Japanese work on this subject, Kishimoto et al.
Physical Review Letters, 28 August: Select Articles.)
Engineering of Rydberg states is a possibility:
PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
Number 426 May 3, 1999 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
WRITING THE WORD "OPTICS" ON A SINGLE ATOM is
possible, scientists have shown, demonstrating the huge
information capacity that exists even in an individual hydrogen
atom. The trick is to sculpt the electron cloud surrounding an atom
into the letters of this word. Shining an ultrashort UV laser pulse
and lower-frequency electromagnetic waves on an atom can send
one of its electrons to a high-lying "Rydberg state," in which it no
longer exists as a cloud of charge enshrouding the nucleus but
instead becomes a "wavepacket" that circles the atomic nucleus
like a planet around a sun (Update 234). Applying a series of
pulses can create a set of wavepackets that combine with each
other like water waves and cancel each other out at specific places
to form patterns around the atom, such as the word "optics," in
which points on each letter correspond to possible places for
finding the electron after measurement. Although neither this feat,
nor the act of accurately measuring such spatial patterns, can yet be
achieved technologically, Carlos Stroud of the University of
Rochester (716-275-2598) and Michael Noel of the University of
Virginia (804-924-6599) point out that an electron in an n=50
Rydberg state (49 energy levels higher than the lowest state) has
2,500 possible states of angular momentum, and have shown that
the states can be combined in many ways, such as to form this
word. (Optics & Photonics News, April 1999; figure at
www.aip.org/physnews/graphics)
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
