This article below is about information storage - not energy, but it is relevant in mentioning the subfield of “superparamagnetism”… which is part of an evolving hypothesis for non-nuclear gain. It can be combined with DCE (the dynamical Casimir effect) to account for net thermal gain in Ni-H reactions (or thermal loss), or in purely magnetic systems, without radioactivity. All of these details are features of a “nanomagnetic approach” based on active particle geometry and oscillation around a phase-change (or Curie temp).
http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Nature_Molecule_Changes_Magnetism_and_Co nductance_999.html DCE, the dynamical Casimir effect was introduced by Julian Schwinger in 1992: “Casimir Energy for Dielectrics,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 89 4091–3. Although he was later to become a proponent of cold fusion, it is not clear to what extent Schwinger himself was fully promoting DCE as an alternative explanation for non-nuclear gain (or else predecessor condition for nuclear reactions). He simply did not have all the pieces to the puzzle then. When one looks deeper at the Ni-H “miracle” and at nano geometry, then a major thermal anomaly begins to look minor, even mundane in the sense of being fully explained as a higher level of probability in Quantum mechanical effects … except for the ultimate source of energy, of course. This is where HF ⇔ ZPE comes in. Of course it is too soon to equate the Higgs field with ZPE, but the implication is so alluring that it cannot be overlooked, especially in the coincidence of 64Ni being close to half the mass-energy of the field boson. In addition to electron tunneling QM effects such as the Lamb shift turn up… not to mention spintronics. Both the Lamb Shift, superparamagnetism, and the DCE portend anomalous heating AND anomalous cooling. All you need is the right material at the right geometry. The possibility of thermal loss is a surprise to many observers. The Lamb shift is a small difference in energy between two energy levels of the hydrogen atom in quantum electrodynamics (QED). It is basically a spin flip. It was the harbinger of modern QED as developed by Schwinger and others. The Lamb shift is tiny in each instance, but lattice phonons move a terahertz frequencies and higher, so the “transaction rate” for tiny incremental gain or loss in contained hydrogen, due to the Lamb shift, is staggering… same with the dynamical Casimir effect of photons, as the two fit like hand-in-glove. All one needs to realize either anomaly over time is to impose asymmetry in a lasting way. Magnets are good at that. Superparamagnetism is a form of magnetism, and can appear in ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, and/or multiferroic nanoparticles. Google has a decent article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiferroics). In properly sized materials containing nickel, for instance, magnetization can flip rapidly under the influence of temperature around a threshold level and with asymmetric gain or loss. The typical time between flips is called the Néel relaxation time. In the absence of external magnetic field, the flip time of the nanoparticles is considerably longer than the polarized Néel relaxation time. This is why a magnetic field can help with excess thermal gain or loss - in the superparamagnetic state. In this state, an external magnetic field is able to re orient of remagnetize the nanoparticles after the spin flip, similarly to what happens in paramagnetism, but with higher magnetic susceptibility and short lag time. Jones
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