It can be argued that the 'Reifenschweiler effect' is one of the great unsolved mysteries of physics.
In terms of real applications and commerce, it is probably FAR more important to our future wealth and happiness than the Higgs boson, the darling of the mainstream - especially if the knowledge opens up an complete understanding of the 'Rossi effect'. or the 'Mills-Rossi effect' as some have been calling it. http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Reifenschwcoldfusion.pdf In its simplest form, the 'Reifenschweiler effect' is a substantial reduction of beta-decay due to cavity confinement. The decay rate of tritium is reduced by more than 25% when the isotope is absorbed in 15 nm titanium-clusters in a temperature window in between 160-275 C. At 360 C the original radioactivity reappears. Why the temperature window, in a range where there is no phase-change in titanium? Why the return to normality at higher temperature? How much reduction occurs when going from 15 nm down to 5 nm? Does the effect work with either Pd and Ni, or is it specific to Ti? Is the effect related to HTSC in some mysterious way ? More questions than answers, as of now. The Reifenschweiler effect is actually the best strong proof available for CANR - that chemistry DOES influence nuclear reactions; and it is also perhaps the only alternative explanation for the Rossi effect. It is clear, from lack of a gamma signature that Rossi's own explanation for the effect is incorrect, and Mills' silence on the issue of radioactivity after long runs is ... well, deafening. Does it help to know that a laser pulse can make a radioactive isotope decay much faster than normal ? The "laser transmutation" effect have been proved in the conversion atoms of iodine129 with a half-life of 15.7 million years into iodine128 with a half-life of 25 min at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The light of the laser was at 530 nm, which is much shorter than the ~10 microns of IR for Reifenschweiler but much longer than the radius of the cavity (Forster Radius). It does not appear to be a resonance issue, but inside a Casimir cavity there will be virtual photons and the suppressed photons add semi-coherence (superradiance), so the effect could be photonic. Casimir himself was still alive when the Reifenschweiler effect was first seen, and although no completely satisfactory explanation was found for it, even up till today, it was considered an example as to "how an electronic environment might affect nuclear phenomena." This could be the precise phrase I am shooting for, in order to broaden it to encompass more. If you look at this closely - as Alan (quoting Sherlock) observes - when you eliminate all the other options, the one remaining, no matter how improbable, is usually correct. Well, we haven't eliminated them all, but the remaining choices for explaining the Rossi effect could be combined into a single hypothesis. It is partially explained by Mills CQM and partially by Fran Roarty's Casimir blog, but the rest relates to how chemistry 'triggers' nuclear reactions at a precise 'compreture' (single scale for temperature and pressure) . which in a word - is CANR. For going from chemical to nuclear, Horace's deflation model seems to have a lot of the answers, but a complete package, putting this all together in the context of Rossi is probably going to require more information than what is available now. Obviously, Rossi is adding lead shielding, even though sophisticated instrumentation has turned up little radioactivity. This probably means the emissions are sporadic. Anyone who has heard Mark LeClair's story may find that problematic, for how to proceed. More questions than answers, as of now. But I am pretty sure that Rossi has contracted the LeClair-syndrome, if you catch my drift. Jones
