From: Kevin O'Malley
... is reversible fusion really "fusion" when the fusion bond lasts for only a few femtoseconds? ****My impression is that this is enough for the Sun to generate photons, Helium, and other stuff. Now, maybe that's only because it is so huge compared to the earth, but it is also gaseous, where we're dealing with condensed matter. Kevin, the detail you may be missing in the solar energy cycle is an important step that only begins with RPF (the diproton reaction) and ends with helium thousands of years later. It is extremely slow. RPF itself is not known to produce significant energy in the Sun, but surprisingly it has not been studied extensively, since it works in a strong gravity field. In fact the diproton reaction could be slightly gainful on the sun and it would never have been noticed. In some forms of LENR there is a substitute gravity field provided by lattice confinement. The slight gain from spin realignment in two protons is called the Lamb shift. This is what is suspected to provide the gain in this form of LENR and it would derive from a reversible fusion reaction. On the sun, however, there can be an extremely rare beta decay of the 2He nucleus during its femtosecond of its lifetime - where there is a decay to deuterium instead of the reversal back to 2 protons. That is the start of the solar fusion cycle. When transposed to LENR, this same reaction seldom goes into beta decay but instead energy is derived from spin via the Lamb shift, which is fueled by QCD color charge during the brief instant of binding. Mass of the proton is converted to energy. The average proton can give up about 7 parts per million of its pion mass and retain its identity. Essentially this is the method whereby the Lamb Shift asymmetry can produce small packets of energy sequentially. Can we not agree that there is a fundamental difference between fusion which is permanent and fusion which is transitory? ***Perhaps that fundamental difference is between gaseous state and solid state... or even the proposed 5th state of matter: BECs. Basically, this is your main statement that I do not understand. The mass which is converted to energy in RPF is bosonic, but a BEC is only involved to the degree that the 2He nucleus, for its femtosecond of lifetime is one of nature's simplest bosons. It is a short term violator of Pauli exclusion because the boson configuration is favored. But the energy released in LENR would happen shortly after the nucleus returns to its identity as two protons, which then experience para <-> ortho Lamb shift in the lattice as they renormalize. The Lamb shift is usually not considered relevant to LENR since the energy value per instance is very low. I do not think that many theorists have reasoned that a "ringing-Lamb-shift" which is happening at THz frequency is a different beast; and that the net energy can be substantial - even larger than "normal" nuclear energy. Names that turn up in LENR history for past advocacy of a Lamb shift modality are Biberian and Myron Evans. My contribution, if there is one, is to tie the Lamb shift directly to the diproton reaction and to spin coupling. That has not been done before. RPF is an emergent hypothesis which essentially is built on the failings of every other theory to adequately explain the near lack of gamma radiation. When you see posts here on vortex that claim there is gamma radiation in LENR, when a few hundred counts are seen in an oddball experiment, that is ludicrous. I get more counts form bananas. In general LENR is gammaless, for all practical purposes. RPF is a theoretical attempt to find a way to accomplish gammaless nuclear conversion through known physics. Therefore RPF is not really heavy-duty fusion-fusion, only FINO fusion (fusion in name only). That is my answer and I'm sticking to it... ***Perhaps RPF is nature's way of desperately seeking equilibrium. Once fusion has taken place, it wrestles with the outcome until the atoms are in their most restful state, which could even be partial hydrogen... That is a very intuitive understanding. In fact, the two protons probably do shuttle between fractional hydrogen and diprotons continually, like a pump. Spin coupling is a major part of the excess energy picture wrt the Lamb Shift and it would be facilitated by the stronger magnetic field of f/H. For instance, when we have protons and a ferromagnet (nickel) together, the two elements can probably spin-couple to continually power an asymmetric Lamb shift using spin energy from nickel high spin isotopes. This would not be possible if Nickel(ll) was not a high spin state d electron. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_states_%28d_electrons%29 The problem with irregularity in Ni-H experiment is surely related somehow to optimization of high spin states. This is probably why an external field is beneficial. Jones
