Before I comment, I should caution that I am only an EE and not a trained nuclear physicist or chemist. It is only natural for me to try to understand behavior in more familiar, EE terms.
I would not like to offer an explanation so much as a mental rationalization that I have constructed to help me understand what is being reported. Dr. Peter Hagelstein (MIT) has a theory and simulation about the effect of coupling of the deuteron(s) in the lattice to the other surrounding atoms in the lattice. We all know each of the atoms in solid condensed matter is highly coupled to its neighboring atoms by the shared electron orbitals. This is strong coupling - it is what makes a solid. I also know from my RF training about he behavior of coupled resonant structures. Take a single resonant structure having a single resonant frequency. It has a single eigenmode (resonance). Now take an identical resonant element and bring it into coupling with the first. What happens is that the eigenmode of each splits into two eigenmodes geometrically centered on the original eigenmode. If there are 3 coupled resonators, then EACH resonator will have 3 eigenmodes. Even weak coupling cause the multiple eigenmodes, but they may be close to each other. Now consider that each atom in a lattice is a resonant element that is coupled to all of the other surrounding atoms in the lattice - strongly coupled to the close ones, and weakly coupled to the more distant atoms. Also imagine that the nucleus is a resonant structure (vibrational, rotational, and maybe in other dimensions) and is coupled to the electron cloud and hence to all of the other neighboring atoms and their nuclei. This would mean that the nucleus itself could now have multiple eigenmodes through its coupling to the neighboring atoms - something that would really only occur in condensed matter. One way these nuclear eigenmodes could be visualized may be in terms of formation of shallow isomeric stabilities in the nucleus. Could then, transitions between the multiple shallow isomeric stabilities be equivalent in some way to the eigenmodes of the electron cloud and allow transitions between them? Could this allow the nucleus to de-excite via transitions between these coupled isomeric stabilities - giving off quanta that are defined by the difference in energy between the different nuclear isomeric states (the eigenvalues)? Of course, this doesn't explain or help understand how the Coulomb barrier is overcome, just how it may be possible in condensed matter to de-excite a nucleus via multiple small gamma photons. Also, by this hypothetical mechanism, this behavior would be possible anywhere in the lattice and is not special to cracks or to the surface of the solid where LENR appears evidenced to occur. Perhaps the de-excitation of a nucleus by small gamma photons is a property of the condensed matter and overcoming of the Coulomb barrier is something that only happens in special features (cracks, surface) in the condensed matter. Obviously the nuclear coupling nucleus eigenmode splitting would be affected by the atomic spacing; and a hydrogen/deuterium atom in a crack would certainly have a different couplings, and hence different eigenmodes, than a hydrogen/deuterium atom would have inside the more regular lattice. Could a unique coupling that could occur with just the right crack, split the eigenmodes of the nucleus in such a way that it matches phonon eigenmodes in the lattice? Bob On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com>wrote: > **** > > Regardless of their involvement, the Coulomb reduction process must take > place in a manner to allow the mass-energy to be released gradually in > small quanta before the fusion process is complete. Otherwise, if > mass-energy remains in the final structure, it must result in gamma > emission to be consistent with known behavior. At this point in the > model, we are faced with a dilemma. What process can be proposed that > satisfies the observed behavior but does not conflict with known and > accepted concepts in physics? All of the proposed models are faced with > this dilemma while attempting to solve the problem different ways. The only > question is which of the proposed methods (theories) provides the most > logical description of observed behavior and best predictions, because they > all contain the consequence of this dilemma. Can we focus the discussion > on this dilemma? > > Ed > > -- Regards, Bob Higgins
