This is a good point, Terry. My understanding was that Mills describes these f/H states as requiring energy extraction by something other than a photon - I.E. evanescent coupling, which could be electric or magnetic field coupling to another atom. Such coupling is very short range. The interstellar medium is diffuse - more diffuse in general than an ordinary plasma. I can imagine this evanescent coupling occurring in condensed matter, but not in a diffuse interstellar medium. Perhaps the instances of the 3.48 keV spectra emission are coming from very dense shock waves in the medium which could behave more like condensed matter - but that would just be a guess. The simpler answer is that the f/H states are probably not the explanation for the observation.
Bob Higgins On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 6:58 AM, Terry Blanton <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 10:51 PM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> I have two questions that maybe someone knows the answer to: >> >> - Is Mills "predicting" a "cutoff," i.e., a broadband spectrum with a >> cutoff at 3.48 keV, or a sharp peak at 3.48 keV? >> - Is the finding in the original article a broadband spectrum with a >> cutoff, or a sharp peak? >> >> Either way, how does the H atom go from the accepted ground state to the > 1/137 fractional state in order to emit this single photon? Is that > covered in General Mills' serial? >
