On Dec 7, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 02:48 PM 12/7/2009, Horace Heffner wrote:
OTOH, if trace tritium doping were
used that number could easily be bumped up by a factor of 10,000,
assuming the triple tracks are indeed from 12C(n,n')3alpha reactions.
And, another comment. The triple tracks reported as 10 per chip in
the Naturwissenschaften report were using a silver cathode. It
appears from other work of theirs that neutrons become far more
common when the cathode is gold.
In the other direction, most C-12 breakups that occur in the CR-39
are not detected, they must occur within a certain region to be
revealed by the etching.
This is a good point. They are probably throughout the CR-39.
Detecting lots more in the middle might be done by dissolving layers
of CR-39 and re-etching.
It's possible that a much more reliable indicator of the neutron
flux would be the far more numerous tracks from knock-on protons.
There are lots more of the low energy neutrons that show up as proton
knock-ons. That is not much in doubt, at least in my mind. You can
see them in the photos on the back side. The triple tracks are
controversial and interesting because hot fusion people see them
plenty. It gets their attention. Also, they indicate a DT reaction.
That indicates a possible very short lattice half life before fusion
of the T, because there is so little of it. The fact there is any T
at all is of course interesting - if you don't think cold fusion can
occur! An alternative explanation for deep single proton knock-on
tracks could be K0 knock-ons. The K0 can also cause triple tracks by
decaying into a Pi+ ad Pi-, i.e. :
p + K0 --> p + Pi+ + pi-
or just double tracks by:
K0 --> pi+ + pi-
Similarly, the lambda0 can make triple tracks by:
lambda0 --> p + Pi-
There appear to me to be a lot of double tracks, and I haven't heard
a good explanation for that.
A powerful magnetic field might pick up the negative particle
byproducts. A bubble chamber would be very handy. I suggested a
cloud chamber with video camera might be of use to amateurs. I also
suggested using stacks of CR-39 to detect kaon decay within a few
inches of the cell.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
