On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 4:29 PM, <mix...@bigpond.com> wrote: However a good chunk of the improvement is consumed by the fact that many > more > UV photons need to be emitted than gamma photons, because the energy is > much > lower. >
This is a common strategy in the computer industry these days -- decrease the processing time by carrying out massively parallel execution. There's another thing that could speed things up, too, I think. If gamma emission is slow, electrostatic transfer of energy is nearly instantaneous (or so I'm given to understand from Ron Maimon). > 10 nm corresponds to a photon energy of 124 eV. > Very convenient energy level for the photons, all in all. > .... assuming of course that there is some form of strong coupling that > allows > transfer of the nuclear energy to the electrons in the particle. > Here's what I want to do with that 5 MeV: 1. In the case of a stripping reaction such as 60Ni(d,p)61Ni (~ 6 MeV), the fast proton burrows into a large number of ionized protons and deuterons being pulled in the opposite direction (by the voltage created by an electric arc, say), thereby thermalizing the energy right away and not causing much in the way of photon emission, due to the fact that the protons are already ionized (because they are in the midst of the electric arc); see http://i.imgur.com/dp37X3R.png 2. In the case of a p(d,G)3He or d(d,G)4He reaction (the latter of which has 24 MeV instead of ~ 5 MeV), perhaps there could be strong electrostatic coupling between the unstable intermediate resonance and the electrons and protons (free hydrogen and in nearby nucleons) in the immediate vicinity. I suspect that electrostatic coupling with nearby protons could decrease the number of electrons that must serve as sinks for the energy significantly. The main challenge I've seen so far presented to the attempted explanation in the second type of reaction, where instead of the emission of a gamma we see photons and phonons result, is the question of why something similar wouldn't happen in a radioactive isotope in a metal. I guess my question is how do we know that it doesn't happen there? Perhaps the gammas that are emitted are ones that are from unstable isotopes that are not embedded within an electron rich environment. Eric
