On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 6:53 AM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
That is really the crux of the Nickel hydrogen analysis. Rossi/Forcardi > originally proposed a reaction in which substantial gammas should have been > witnessed at 10 kW of thermal release. The original lead shielding (in the > first demo) was indicative of his belief that there were gamma and he hired > an expert for testing at that demo. > > > > Things changed. > That is where things get really interesting. Things did change, and by the time we get to Bianchini's report, given in connection with the Elforsk test, no "gammas" were seen. I do not recall what the threshold were set to for his measuring device, or even what type of device he used (e.g., GM counter, NaI scintillation counter, etc.). But whatever it was, I don't recall him measuring anything above ambient. There are two points to be made in this connection. The first is that Rossi has mentioned using 62Ni and 64Ni. I long thought the explanation for this was that these two isotopes are more reactive (although I didn't necessarily buy this explanation). I now suspect that that's not why they're being used at all. Instead, these isotopes after proton capture go to stable isotopes of copper -- 63Cu and 65Cu. In these two isotopes, there is no beta-plus decay and no beta-minus decay. That means, in particular, no 511 keV annihilation photons for the beta-plus decays, which would occur in huge quantities in a vigorous reaction with unenriched nickel. Remember when Rossi had all of the people evacuate the room during one of his demos? A second point to make is that a careful distinction must be made between (1) the "missing gamma" that would normally occur during a nickel proton capture reaction and (2) all of the activity that would happen after doing a run with unenriched nickel. It seems that (1) is simply not an issue, whatever is going on. My supposition is that (2) is relevant and that it has been brought under control, possibly through improvements in the enrichment process. Here it is easy to confuse ourselves by using the term "gamma" loosely -- there's low-level penetrating radiation, and there are the high-energy photons that are often seen as one of the daughters of a nickel proton capture reaction. I'm saying that it would seem that low-level penetrating radiation is both seen and expected in an NiH reaction with unenriched nickel, and that the nuclear-origin gammas are not. > The problem with any suggestion including Ed’s, which does not exclude > gamma radiation from the start (ab initio) which is to say - by the nature > of the reaction itself – can be called “leakage.” In all reactions in > physics where gammas can witnessed, they will be witnessed. There are no > exceptions. Gammas are highly penetrating, and even1% leakage stands out > like a sore thumb. Actually even one part per billion would stand out like > a sore thumb. > This is an important point to be a stickler about, and you're right to emphasize it. It was also made in connection with neutrons in the WL description -- if there's any significant leakage at all of gammas in a kW reaction, bystanders are going to be in great danger. So I think that's an important gating factor -- aside from a few blips here and there, an explanation should not involve any gammas (of type 1, above, and not lower-energy penetrating radiation of type 2). I don't think the explanation I've been playing around with suffers from any issues on this count -- I've sort of taken a phenomenological approach, effectively defining away the problem of high-energy gammas, on the assumption that the hidden mechanism (perhaps relating to electrons) will eventually be understood. It's a cop-out, but only sort-of. > Things could be different for other reactions like Pd-D, but for now, we > are only concerned with an analysis of the Rossi reaction, in this thread. > Yes -- I get the sense that things are different between NiH and PdD in at least one important respect. If there is proton capture in p+Ni (there might or might not be, although I think there probably is, at least as one reaction among several), there does not appear to be a corresponding deuteron capture reaction in PdD. A d+Pd reaction appears to be energetically unfavorable. So for reasons that go back to the constituent reactants, you might see a lot of activity in NiH with unenriched nickel, and relatively little activity in a typical PdD experiment. Eric
