Axil:
Let me take a stab at your question:
"Why should coherent protons be any better at thermalizing gamma radiation
than ordinary protons? (Especially if that coherence is limited to pairs)."
The coherent photons are acting as a resonant antenna. I'm sure many have
played around with resonant circuits, and antennas. Coupling of energy from
the radiowave into an antenna requires a harmonic match. At the end of my
comments is an excerpt from research into how quantum coherence in plant
biology operates to achieve very high efficiencies in the energy transfer in
photosynthetic proteins.
My recent readings only enhance my suspicions that resonances (i.e.,
coherence) are fundamental to LENR and why the channeling of the nuclear
energies goes into much lower energy (thermal) 'sinks' instead of coming out
as high energy particles. In normal condensed matter, there is little to no
real coherence which is harmonically related to the energy packets coming
out of a nuclear process, thus, that packet of energy exits the condensed
matter before being absorbed (coupled) into other energetic elements of the
condensed matter. no resonant antennas to receive the energy.
The normal picture of coherence in bulk matter, is basically, none.
Non-coherence. There is some, but what does exist is very fleeting in time
and not spatially localized; it's just randomly happening in small areas,
all throughout the bulk matter, and only for very short times. Thus, there
is a extremely small chance that a particular fleeting instance of quantum
coherence will be in the same location as a burst of a quantum of nuclear
energy passes by on its way out of the bulk matter. Thus, extremely low
probability of any interaction; of any transfer of energy. Note this
statement from the excerpt below,
">>>These coherences therefore dephase before even the fastest energy
transfer timescales<<<
Coherence also influences 'interferences', both destructive and
constructive. Note specifically this statement from the excerpt below,
>>>destructive interference in a coherent system might disallow transfer
to a trap state or
constructive interference might enhance transport to the target
state.<<<
So quantum coherence can indeed affect energy coupling/transfer from one
energy level to another. Any method to create long-lasting (i.e., stable)
areas of quantum coherence (i.e., resonant antennas) within condensed matter
that hang around long enough to get hit by quanta ejected from nuclear
processes, will act to channel/couple the expelled nuclear energies into the
lattice instead of that energy exiting the bulk matter as gammas or neutrons
or the typical particles expected from hot fusion.
Summary:
Just think of quantum coherences as resonant antennas, but blinking in and
out of existence throughout the bulk matter. Very low probability for any
energy transfer from nuclear ejecta, thus ejecta exit bulk matter intact.
Find a way to create coherences that are harmonically related to the nuclear
ejecta, and which hang around long enough to get hit by those ejecta often,
and you will have drastically altered the branching ratios one would expect
from 'normal' hot fusion.
-mark
------------
"Coherence, therefore is a relatively fleeting quantity. In photosynthetic
complexes, the coherence between ground
and excited states that is excited by the optical field persists for only
70fs at 77K (liquid nitrogen) and about 20fs at
room temperature [18]. These coherences therefore
>>dephase before even the fastest energy transfer timescales<< (about
150-300 fs) become relevant. However, coherences between excited states
apparently persist much longer based on
experimental observations. Such coherences are created by any fast
excitation process, which by definition will not
commute with the Hamiltonian and will generally couple the ground state to
multiple excited states. Ultrafast laser
pulses have this property, but so will other forms of excitations such as
spatially localized "hopping" processes.
Before the coherence among excited states dephases, the excitation maintains
a superposition character and does
not yet behave like a simple mixture of excited states. While not a formal
definition of coherence, this notion of
superposition character provides a simple interpretation for the observable
effects resulting from quantum coherence.
In particular, quantum beating in observables that do not commute with the
Hamiltonian is a direct consequence of
this superposition character. Perhaps less obvious, yet equally enlightening
is the effect of quantum interference.
Whenever the ensemble maintains some average phase, interference - either
constructive or destructive - must be
considered. For example,
>>>destructive interference in a coherent system might disallow transfer
to a trap state or
constructive interference might enhance transport to the target
state.<<<
This effect arises because probabilities in quantum
mechanics come from the square of the sums of the amplitudes as compared to
incoherent (classical) mechanisms
which give probabilities based on the sum of the squares of amplitudes [13].
The net phase within the ensemble provides new opportunities for chemical
reactivity even without complete
fidelity. For example, destructive interference need not lower a rate
constant to zero; simply depressing the rate
constant is enough to affect chemical dynamics. Similarly, enhancement based
on constructive interference can behave
in the same manner. Therefore, opportunities exist to exploit long-lived
quantum coherence to adjust rate constants
without adjusting the couplings. Interference provides another route to
manipulating rates that does not appear in
simple incoherent models such as Fermi's Golden Rule calculations that
provide the foundation for most chemists'
intuition.
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