Here is a theoretical possibility for a special kind of nuclear power -
Quark power of the LENR or 'latent variety', i.e. no neutrons, low
radiation, non-fusion, non fission, . and the only indicia is excess thermal
energy and the "disappearance" of protons. We can call it "quark power" or
dark energy or simply LENR.
It demands only the dense form of hydrogen - which is the main prerequisite
for 'quark soup' interactions, for reasons that will become apparent. In the
end, hydrogen actually disappears from the reaction over time (in 3-space)
and at a rate which we can determine precisely.
The dense hydrogen can come from 'spillover', or from a Millsean reaction
(if the two are really different) or from other unknown first steps. The
various names which have been used to describe it are "pycno," IRH (inverted
Rydberg hydrogen) f/H (fractional hydrogen) or hydrinos (at high
redundancy).
In the standard model, a proton has a mass of approximately 938 MeV, of
which the rest-mass of its three constituent quarks is only about 11 MeV,
and the remainder relates to binding energy - gluons ! OK it's not quite
that simple, but we are dealing in generalities now to make a point in the
clearest way. Most of the mass of a proton is binding energy. This is fact,
by the way - not speculation. only about one percent of a proton relates to
primordial 'mass' and the rest is a special kind of binding energy.
. ergo - there plenty of room for what 'appears' to be mass converted into
energy, when in fact this only relates to a release of what is already there
in a rearrangement of quarks. This happens with or without strange quarks -
but because they are a prime "dark matter" candidate ('strangelets' are
probably the best candidate) strange quarks could be involved fundamentally
in the most common process where hydrogen seems to "disappear". Hydrogen
disappears after having given up a bit of its excess binding energy, and
with few gammas and no ash and only occasional transmutation. Otherwise
strange quarks are never seen, only up and down quarks.
In fact, quarks may operated in a different way when they are associated
closely as in "pycno" or dense hydrogen (IRH), and they may become somewhat
fluid to an extent, in two dimensions. Let me backtrack one step -
dense-hydrogen ONLY exists in 2-space so in effect this process only happens
in 2-space.
Thus, in a low energy reaction quarks are the active particle, and they can
'occasionally' form into either strangelets or other hadrons, while a
substantial portion of mass is converted into energy. It should require
hundreds of protons to form a strangelet. This is low probability but it
does happen, and in the Rossi experiment we may see that it happens in more
frequently when a large amount of reactant is involved in an emergent or
critical mass way.
To repeat the most important point, most of a protons' apparent mass, by far
- comes from the gluons that bind the constituent quarks together, rather
than from the quarks themselves. Thus it is apparent mass, not real mass.
While gluons may be inherently massless, like photons - they possess lots of
energy, in practice. This energy is called QCBE or quantum chromodynamics
binding energy. Most specialists (physicist who study QED) accept this as
fact to some degree, although they might accuse me of manipulating the
wording to prove a point that they think is false. So be it.
More detail. Every proton is a collection of only up and down quarks, formed
into triplets with no strange quarks. 'Strangelets' are exotic and very
dense combinations of many quarks which also contains strange quarks, and in
principle are MORE stable than nuclei, once formed, yet they are not seen in
normal physics. Why? - because they become "dark" and exist on the interface
of 3-space and another dimension, so they remain undetectable to us now.
(except in high energy experiments).
There is a basic incompatibility between the varieties of quarks when three
types are together in a nucleus since the strange can be far denser. In
fact, one reason strangelets have been associated with dark matter is that
they will likely sink to the center of mass of any system in which they are
formed, including earth - over time. They can carry away up and down quarks
(form protons) with them! The high mass of our planet's core can thus be
imagined to consist of lot of strangelets.
This would be precisely how one converts a small portion of the mass of
hydrogen gas into energy in our 3-space, while at the same time, hydrogen
seems to disappear.
This is a variant of the "strange matter hypothesis" of Bodmer and Witten.
According to this hypothesis, when a large enough number of all three kinds
of quarks are collected together, a strangelet can form which is more stable
than any nucleus - i.e. dark energy forms. This process them becomes the
basis for the excess energy seen in those kinds of LENR which start with
dense clusters. There may or may not be other forms of LENR which do
involve fusion of deuterium but this one does not involve fusion of
hydrogen, only fusion of quarks (derived from hydrogen) into dark matter.
Jones
