On Oct 8, 2009, at 6:58 PM, [email protected] wrote:
In reply to Horace Heffner's message of Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:02:07
-0800:
Hi,
[snip]
If the D(D,gamma)He4 branch is highly favored and the D(D,p)T and D
(D,n) He3 reactions highly suppressed, it is reasonable to expect the
lower energy branches are being energetically suppressed by a lack of
energy to make them feasible.
[snip]
He4 is far more stable than either He3+n or T+p, and the only
reason that it
doesn't form all the time is because the excited He4 nucleus
doesn't have any
fast energy removal channel available to it (quadrupole gamma
radiation is very
slow compared to energy loss via a fast particle). That means that
the excited
nucleus usually breaks up releasing the energy as fast particles
long before the
gamma ray could dispose of the energy.
However in your deflation fusion model there is *always* an
electron present in
the newly formed He4* (because that's what catalyzed the reaction
in the first
place). There is therefore nothing to hinder the formation of He4
by disposing
of the excess energy as kinetic energy of the electron, which has
to be expelled
anyway. That neatly explains the change in branching ratios without
resorting to
any exchange with the ZPE.
Your assertion demonstrates the diagnostic importance of tritium
doping to determination of the reaction mechanism. The correlation of
heat with He4 is difficult due to the difficulty of measuring the
total amount of He4 produced, and specifically the amount remaining
in the lattice. See:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Hagelsteinnewphysica.pdf
Which, for example, states:
• The rate of helium production (atoms/s) varies linearly with
excess power (see Figure 6).
• The amount of helium observed in the gas stream is generally
within a factor of about 2 less than would
be expected for a reaction mechanism consistent with D+D → 4He.
• Helium is partially retained, and dissolved helium is released
only slowly to the gas phase for analysis.
It simply is very difficult to establish with high sigma results
whether energy is produced at 23.8 MeV or 18.8 MeV per He4, or
something in between.
In the case of the fusion reaction:
D + T -> He4 (3.5 MeV) + n (14.1 MeV)
it is much easier to determine if the energy spectrum of the
neutrons, which result from every such reaction, is consistent with a
mean of 14.1 MeV. I think there is in fact some indication that the
neutrons resulting from cold fusion are considerably less than 14.1
MeV on average. This is because only a few percent are above 9.4
MeV. It remains for the spectrum to be nailed down. I think this is
the most important experimental work at hand.
There is also the theoretical question of whether the electron is
capable of radiating away the energy released by the strong force
when the helium nucleus is formed. It strikes me as likely in
ordinary D-D hot fusion that an energetic helium nucleus is
momentarily formed prior to the release of either a proton or
neutron. That means the nucleus momentarily contains the full 23.9
MeV of a D-D fusion heat, of strong force binding of the deuterons.
The breaking of strong force bonds, fission of the He4*, to release
an n or p then saps away some of that heat. In the case of D(D,p)T
the energy required to fission off a proton is 23.9 MeV - 4.03 MeV =
19.87 MeV. In the case of the D(D,n)He3 reaction the fission energy
to produce the neutron is 23.9 MeV - 3.27 MeV = 20.63 MeV. This
results in the classic hot fusion energies:
D(D,p)T 4.03 MeV
D(D,n)He3 3.27 MeV
D(D,gamma)He4 23.9 MeV
Now, if a small electron is present in the fused nucleus, the nucleus
kinetic energy is reduced a priori, the nuclear temperature is
reduced. The energy of fusion does not have to be radiated away. No
time is required for photon creation, or for that matter neutrino
creation or any other weak reaction, prior to the He4* nucleus
fission. The heat is simply not there to begin with. The amount of
energy so removed from the He* depends on the wavelength of the
electron at the moment of wavefunction collapse, so is a stochastic
variable.
I think only the D-T reaction energy data can be expected to provide
a precise answer to what mechanism is at work in cold fusion.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
