In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:43:40 -0800: Hi Horace, [snip] >It seems to me that such a tunneling event would be far more likely >if the hydrogen nucleus tunneled into the host nucleus bringing along >it's own electron as extra baggage. I think the prospects of that >would be greatly enhanced by a dense electron environment in the >lattice, but that is just another way of coming to similar >conclusions regarding the nature of an ideal lattice. > The potential problem I see with this is that if a proton were to bring along it's own electron, it would effectively be a neutral particle. That leaves then only the nuclear force as a "reason" for the tunneling. (I don't think tunneling takes place unless a force acts on the tunneling particle, i.e. unless there is a difference in energy between the starting and ending sites). The problem with the nuclear force is that it is very short range, and hence not likely to have a significant effect on particles at Angstrom distances. OTOH, the chances for a proton to tunnel into a host atom under the influence of the electric force, where it possibly steals a host electron, and immediately enters a shrunken orbital state, could be considerable, considering the energy gain involved. Having in this way formed a tiny, "long lived" neutral particle (which is stable as long as it remains in the host atom), it has a much better chance of eventually either tunneling into the nucleus of the host or fusing with a second "interloper".
Regarding stability, I'm not sure that it would be unstable if it left the host atom. Since quite a bit of energy was released when it formed, in order to be destroyed, that energy would have to come from somewhere, and it could be on the order of keV, so is not readily available in an ordinary room temperature environment. Perhaps this is enough to keep it trapped in the host atom, or the unavailability of keV energy may prolong it's life sufficiently to allow it to make short hops from one host atom to another. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
