On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 6:40 PM, Alan Fletcher <[email protected]> wrote:
Particularly day 5 Hagelstein
>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Al7NMQLvATo
Interesting video. I have always been a little mystified by Peter
Hagelstein's theory. My understanding is that in its current form it
involves two receivers which form semi-independent oscillators with the 24
MeV donor. In one oscillator, phonon modes are weakly coupled with the
donor, and in the other oscillator, the "nuclear degrees of freedom" are
strongly coupled with it. These two oscillators work in conjunction to
fractionate the 24 MeV quantum into relatively low-energy phonon modes,
which dissipate energy from the system as heat. The reason for two
oscillators instead of one is that you have to have a strongly coupled
partner to interact with the 24 MeV donor, and the phonon modes can't
provide this kind of coupling. Mono-vacancies are also important in the
theory, for in a mono-vacancy in palladium, there will still be significant
electron charge density, and this charge density will have the effect of
screening the reactants somewhat with the negative charge of the electrons,
thereby reducing Coulomb repulsion between reacting nuclei.
At 1:10:20, Hagelstein addresses how his model does not fall into the trap
set by Huizenga's three miracles. In connection with two of those
miracles, Hagelstein does not believe that his theory requires that Coulomb
repulsion be altered, nor that it requires the branching ratios for
t/3He/gammas to be changed in the case of d+d fusion. I had a hard time
understanding him when he explained why it was that these two miracles were
avoided. It might have been something along the lines of Coulomb repulsion
being overwhelmed by the large number of coherently coordinated actors in
the system, and the branching ratios being applicable to "incoherent
fusion," whereas we're dealing with a coherent system, so they do not
apply. It's likely that I misunderstood one or both of these points.
As an uninformed bystander, there are several challenges that I have with
Hagelstein's theory. The first is the expectation that in a 700 C system
there will be any kind of coherent coordination of phonons, let alone a
coordination of phonon modes sufficient to fractionate on the order of
10E12 reactions per second into heat. Although Hagelstein's theory is
focused on PdD, which has typically been operated at lower temperatures, he
also seeks to apply it to NiH, which is often operated at higher
temperatures. If I have understood him, he notes that the coherence of the
phonons has to be more than just local and must extend across a significant
portion of the system [1]. A second difficulty I have is the notion that
phonons can be coupled to a nuclear reaction that is underway. I can
imagine electromagnetic coupling, e.g., the coupling of a [dd]*
intermediate state with the positive charges of the nuclei and the negative
charges of the electrons, but it seems too abstract to say that a reaction
can directly couple with phonons. This probably just goes back to a
deficiency in my understanding of quantum mechanics. Note that
electromagnetic coupling with lattice sites would lead to phonons as a
side-effect, and electromagnetic coupling with electrons would lead to
photons.
There's good reason to think that Hagelstein is correct in assuming that
plain old fusion is going on ("d+d fusion" in the case of PdD), and in
wanting to fractionate the resulting mass-energy of the source across a
large number of sinks, instead of trying to devise a way to catch a 23 MeV
gamma or fast t and 3He in flight. What I don't understand yet is why he
does not consider electromagnetic coupling with electrostatic charges in
the Coulomb rich environment. Perhaps this is because it might imply that
in such an environment the branching ratios would change, depending on how
you look at the matter.
Eric
[1] I have a similar difficulty with BECs and hydrotons -- how do such
delicate creatures form and survive in something as chaotic as a metal at
high temperatures?
