Lou, the answer is, its complicated, but very interesting and conditions
can be recreated in the lab, and the guy who knows all about this is Joe
Dwyer. He has done an excellent review
http://www.springerlink.com/content/l112wv31n5446564/
You also get gamma rays, and he has shown that these are generated with
a down stroke (ie the bit that you don't see) and appear to be
associated with the formation of each fork in the stepped leader (see
fig 18).
Nigel
On 06/11/2012 15:27, [email protected] wrote:
Nigel,
Thanks for spreading that information. It is a surprising phenomenon.
I believe some lightning generates neutrons and positrons, but some does not.
Do you know what the conditions produce neutrons/positrons?
Also, whether these conditions can be replicated in the lab?
-- Lou Pagnucco
And I think I may be able to claim responsibility for the inclusion of
the paragraph about neutron release in thunderstorms, given my
discussions over the last couple of years with John Swain.
Nigel
On 06/11/2012 02:41, [email protected] wrote:
Just published on Arxiv.org --
"Theories of Low Energy Nuclear Transmutations"
- Y.N. Srivastava, A. Widom, J. Swain
ABSTRACT: Employing concrete examples from nuclear physics it is shown
that low energy nuclear reactions can and have been induced by all of
the
four fundamental interactions (i) (stellar) gravitational, (ii) strong,
(iii) electromagnetic and (iv) weak. Differences are highlighted through
the great diversity in the rates and similarity through the nature of
the
nuclear reactions initiated by each.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1211.0924
