Jones,
Thanks for posting this URL.
I think there may be a misunderstanding as to what the paper says.
It does not say that a neutrino comes on scene from an external
source and catalyzes a nuclear reaction.
If you look at the Feynman diagram for the reaction proposed by Ratis
you will see that the neutrino is not an input or output of the
reaction, but only an intermediate state particle. What the W-
neutrino reaction does is prolong an electron-in-nucleus state by
converting a proton momentarily and reversibly into a particle
consisting of a positron, neutron, and very heavy neutrino. The
enormous mass of the neutrino, on the order of GeV, consists almost
entirely of borrowed vacuum energy. Ratis thus proposes a deuteron
involved in such a reaction is momentarily converted into what looks
like a super-heavy di-neutron. He then goes on to calculate the half-
life of the heavy deuteron state, i.e. the deuteron with heavy
neutrino state, to be an astounding 10^-3 seconds, which is gigantic
in nuclear terms, and the cross section to the electron capture to be
10 mbarn, which is small for nuclear reactions, but large for
electron reactions because electron flux can be so huge, even in
ordinary lattice conditions.
Note that the reversible electron capture process also applies to a
proton not in a D nucleus, but rather stand-alone. However, the half-
life of that state should be much shorter.
This reversible process might be expressed as:
D + e <-> ((e+,n,v),n)* = D*
or just:
D + e <-> D*
and in the case of just a proton:
p + e <-> p*
which is exactly how I defined the reversible deflated hydrogen state
on page 12 of :
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf
I go on to state:
"The existence of at least a brief small wavelength (p e)* or (D e)*
state, of some kind, whether as specified here or not, can not be
denied. Such a configuration has a greatly increased joint tunneling
range. Electrons exist within the nucleus with small probability even
in ordinary hydrogen. Electrons exist in nuclei prior to electron
capture. Such electrons have high kinetic energy, high (relativistic)
mass, and small size. Electrons pass through the nucleus with very
high probabilities, i.e. high repetition rates, in some molecules and
it appears there is a high probability of such transits associated
with partial orbitals that are created in the lattice.38 The deflated
state is proposed to be merely an elongation of the duration of the
electron stay in the nucleus due to interactions of the electron and
the positive quarks, especially the up quark. In classical terms, the
deflated state might be viewed as consisting of roughly 104 orbits of
an up quark per attosecond.
"The reaction:
p + e < -> (p e)*
has no associated energy unless a photon emission occurs near the
nucleus, but then that is another reaction entirely. The (p e)* state
has an attosecond order existence. The transformation to and from the
deflated (p e)* state is thus rapid and may in fact exist only in a
probabilistic quantum wave form sense. It requires no stretch of
imagination or credulity to accept the possibility a (p e)* state
complex can tunnel as a whole, or be tunneled to, by a charged
particle, with much higher probability than a bare hydrogen nucleus.
Even paired electrons in superconductors have the ability to tunnel
as pairs across a Josephson junction, a forbidden zone for not only a
single electron, but impossible for a pair of electrons in any
classical way due to their Coulomb repulsion when outside the
superconductor. Engineering excess heat in cold fusion is thus
largely a matter of engineering high probabilities and densities of
deflated states, simultaneous with high tunneling rates within the
lattice."
In my articles I described a different process, nature and, lifetime
for the deflated state. However, the consequences of the existence
of D* or p*, by any mechanism, are the same, namely cold fusion and
heavy element LENR. These consequences are spelled out to some
degree in
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf
but that is only the tip of an iceberg. If you want to get a feel
for the potential size this iceberg see:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/dfRpt
wherein I describe some new concepts, such as nuclear catalytic
reactions or "NCRs", and take a look from a new perspective at the
best materials for some forms of LENR. This is a work in progress.
This currently includes only Reports A-J, but many more will be
included. There are many more heavy element transmutation weak
reactions than strong-only reactions, and these have not yet been
included or described, but hopefully will be shortly.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
On Jan 19, 2010, at 7:05 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
If you try to follow all of the papers that come out in alternative
energy – particularly the ones with an impressive or new slant on
LENR - then in recent years you probably noticed a large number of
Russian papers with impressive mathematical backing - yet were
certainly not accurate in the conclusion.
They seem to be strong on math-manipulation and short on experiment
in the new Russia. My mind went numb trying to follow this “Main
Formalism” argument in the paper below, so I skipped ahead looking
for the non-existent experiment … nada … but even so, something
tells me that there could be a glimmer of truth to the hypothesis
presented.
I do not know for sure where this paper falls, in terms of insight
and importance, but a simple confirming experiment would be nice,
and perhaps also extremely easy to pull off –
http://versita.metapress.com/content/qj816664m0302032/fulltext.pdf
… if you are in a country with lots of nuclear reactors, and claim
to work for an “Institute of power engineering for the special
application” - then it is almost a de minimis effort to find a
source of neutrinos, and almost silly not to have taken a
measurement of a simple operating LENR cell placed either near or
away from the reactor, free of gammas etc but with an enhanced
neutrino population – in order to get a quick determination of a
significant difference that would give you some small real-world
credibility.
No, it would not prove anything, but if positive it adds some
confirmation to the formalism – and that would lead to a proper
experiment, perhaps one funded by DoE.
One almost suspects that an experiment was performed with null
results, but the authors were so proud of their formalism that they
published anyway.
Jones
