On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Bob Higgins <rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com>
wrote:
When you speak of the plasma fusion output channels, I like to think of it
> in a Bohr-sian way. Presuming plasma, you have isolated deuterium nuclei,
> with each nucleus spinning around random vectors. When a pair approaches
> with a trajectory alignment that the collision will result in fusion, the
> relative rotation between the nuclei is still random.
>
After thinking about this more, I kind of like your description for the
three dd branches. Is it something you heard or read about somewhere, or
just what made sense to you?
The strong force is like fly paper - it is so short range (fraction of a
> nucleon diameter), you have to essentially "touch" before sticking. So you
> end up with 3 possibilities of this close approach: 1) proton is closest
> and hits and sticks first, 2) neutron is closest and hits and sticks first,
> and 3) the proton and neutron hit just right so that they both hit at the
> same time and stick in an interlocking fashion. When 1) happens, a neutron
> is released and you get 3He. When 2 happens, a proton is released and you
> get tritium, and when 3) happens you get 4He and a gamma.
>
Another possible interpretation of this is that in the d(d,p)t and
d(d,n)3He branches, the two d's do not fully tunnel into a compound
nucleus. Instead, the individual nucleons (p in one case, and n in the
other) tunnel across the potential barrier along the lines of the
Oppenheimer-Phillips process and are stripped off of the d that once held
them. Preceding the scattering, there may or may not be reorientation of
the d's to account for Coulomb repulsion from the proton in the oncoming d.
This would predict that 1) and 2) would be fairly common and 3) would be
> very rare. However, because of the Coulomb field, as the deuterium nuclei
> approach each other, it would push the protons apart, making the neutrons
> more likely to face each other, but this only happens at the last minute.
> Because of this, 2) may be slightly more favored.
>
A different prediction would be that the strong Coulomb field in the
background orients the d's so that the constituent p's are facing out away
along the gradient towards less charge. So the incident d's would look
like this:
Coulomb field
+++++++++++++
n n
| -> <- |
p p
In this scenario, the two d's collide in parallel instead of oriented at
random or in tandem.
Eric
