At 05:36 PM 12/7/2009, Horace Heffner wrote:
Other neutrons are undoubtedly created, but only tritium reactions
produce energies high enough to make the triple tracks.
Interesting. Well, we do know there is some tritium there. It could
be hot tritons that would then fuse with high cross-section, given
all the deuterium nuclei in the vicinity.
The D+D reaction creates a 0.82 MeV 3He and a 2.45 MeV neutron. The
2.45 MeV neutron can have a knock-on reaction with a proton and
produce a 1-2 MeV proton that will make a small but visible track in
the CR-39. It can also fuse with a proton and make a visible 2.45
MeV deuteron track in the CR-39. Other candidate reactions for high
energy neutrons are:
T + T --> 4He + 2 n + 11.3 MeV
T + 3He --> 4He + p + n + 12.1 MeV
but those reactions are not likely to occur in D2O CF experiments
Agreed.
That the triple tracks are from 12C breakup is, to my mind, not
seriously in doubt.
I think there may be a little bit of reason for doubt, as I noted in:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf
pages 20, and 26-30, the latter pages being the "TRACE TRITIUM AND
TRIPLE TRACKS" section.
My doubt is based on: Rusov VD, et al.,"Fast neutron recording by
dielectric track detectors in a palladium-deuterated-tritiated water
system in an electrolytic cell", Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 15(#19) (1989)
9--13 {In Russian}.
I wrote: "Rusov et al. observed 8 (+-4) high energy neutrons per
second in CR-39 using pure 50:50 DT water and 72% Pd, 25% Ag, 3% Au
electrodes, and 200 V electrolysis potential. This experiment
provides a solid indication of a nominal amount of DT fusion even
though there is no indication that proper lattice conditions for cold
fusion were established. If repeatable, that is a landmark
achievement because it proves fusion from chemical conditions.
Hopefully with what is known today the results can be greatly
improved. However, the low counts even at 50-50 DT mix may also be an
indication that the SPAWAR tracks are not from high energy neutrons.
The SPAWAR lattice must have a negligible amount of tritium, created
by cold fusion itself. The tritium branch in cold fusion is highly
suppressed. Even a slight doping of the electrolyte with tritium
should multiply the neutron counts in SPAWAR co-deposition style
experiments by orders of magnitude - provided the high energy
neutrons are from DT reactions."
That is not much of an improvement considering a 50:50 D-T mix. His
electrolysis method or choice of lattice could have botched any
chance of fusion, so the situation is indeterminate - but that means
doubt.
So, as I read this, the doubt is that tritium reactions could be
producing neutrons of the requisite energy. I still consider the
triple tracks as being diagnostic of energetic neutrons, and I've
seen no cogent suggestion of anything else that wouldn't be a much
greater mystery.
When hot particles collide, causing a fusion reaction that itself
releases energy, the original kinetic energy remains. There could be
hot alphas all the way up to 23.8 MeV. That energy could be added to
whatever energy was released from the secondary reaction, or the
secondary reaction could actually absorb some energy, and there would
still be enough energy left for triple-track-causing neutrons.
As I go on to say, there are other candidate reactions, including the
proton knock-on:
lambda0 + p --> p + p + pi-
There may be exotic reactions. But the triple tracks seem to be three
equal tracks. And I don't see any need to postulate exotic reactions.
What would be the source of the lambdas"?
which can fill the bill, if the strange (and also weird!) reactions I
specified are actually occurring. What is interesting about the
strange matter theory is that it accounts for the tendency of excess
heat to occur in excursions. What is not good about it is there
should be some detectable gammas. OTOH, there are lots of theories
regarding how gammas can get swallowed up by the lattice. I think I
referenced one by Mitchell Swartz, who lurks here, at least on occasion.
What's speculative at this point is the source of the neutrons,
other than "from the cathode."
Neutrons are present in cosmic ray showers, but they would be very
unlikely to appear to be coming from the cathode, as the SPAWAR
tracks appear to do. Also, triple tracks don't show up in the
control experiments.
Right. Further, it's not just triple tracks. There are plentiful
tracks that appear to be proton knock-on. It would be nice if someone
looked that the apparent proton tracks and the apparent
triple-tracks, and correlated them. It would simply be a confirmation
that it's neutrons, that ratio should be a constant for a given
material and incident neutron energy, until the energy falls too low
to fracture carbon.
