http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1108/1108.2203.pdf
Vacuum as a hyperbolic metamaterial Magnetic Fields Turn the Vacuum into a Superconducting Superlens, Says Physicist... It is both interesting and central in LENR to understand what is going on inside the nuclear active environment (NAE). Another piece of the puzzle in the quest for this understanding is the determination by Dr. G, Miley that the NAE is superconducting. So can this unusual state come to be? To begin, the vacuum as the ultimate nothingness is an idea that quantum physicists have long proved wrong. Instead, they’ve shown that the vacuum is filled with virtual quantum particles leaping in and out of existence in a maelstrom of quantum activity. Sometimes, these virtual particles can become real. For example, a powerful electric field can generate electron-positron pairs in a vacuum. And there are other ways of making something out of this nothingness. A few years back, the Russian physicist Maxim Chernodub showed how a powerful magnetic field can generate electrically charged ρ mesons that behave like a superconductor along the axis of the magnetic field. And today, Igor Smolyaninov, at the University of Maryland, takes this idea a step further. Those who follow nanotechnology will know Smolyaninov as one of the world’s leading thinkers about metamaterials, the strange artificial substances that can manipulate light in exotic ways. In recent years, he has shown how to use metamaterials to make everything from black holes to quantum foam. Now Smolyaninov has turned his attention to the superconducting behaviour of the charged ρ mesons generated in a vacuum by a magnetic field. He points out that this superconducting state behaves exactly like a metamaterial, focusing light in exotic ways. If this magnetic field varies in space in the right kind of way, it’s quite possible for this superconducting state to focus light like a superlens. Equally it could also trap light like a black hole. The more light that falls into these EMF black holes, the more squeezed the light becomes. A positive feedback loop begins to operate where more magnetic fields means more light confinement and more light confinement means more magnetic field strength. The observation of pair production from the disintegration of the vacuum and appearance of superconductivity in the NAE puts a value on the minimum power level that the magnetic field inside the NAE is exceeding: that value is 10^16 tesla minimum.
