Force-free extreme acceleration of subatomic particles

1st Official Post

    "New analysis shows a way to self-propel subatomic particles"


    EXCERPT - ... physicists at MIT and Israel's Technion have found that subatomic particles can be induced to speed up all by themselves, almost to the speed of light, without the application of any external forces ... "The electron is gaining speed, getting faster and faster," Kaminer says. "It looks impossible. You don't expect physics to allow this to happen."

    http://phys.org/news/2015-01-a…-subatomic-particles.html


    Interesting, but I think, perhaps, it is a rediscovery.
    Several papers have shown how highly oscillatory (but with slowly moving envelop) wavefunctions can attain high kinetic energy.
    Also, phenomena like superoscillations, can cause "hot spots" and energy foci in fields.

    Barty,


    I think this is not related to EmDrive since momentum is still conserved.
    I believe the scientists are observing the high momentum tails of the particles' spectra - even particles with slow (or even stationary) wavefunction envelops can have high momentum components, e.g., inner shell electrons.
    Their experiment might show that extreme momentum events (e.g., collisions) could occur in unexpected circumstances.


    Some possibly related references --
    "Tunneling of slow quantum packets through the high Coulomb barrier"
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.3837
    "Superkicks near optical vortices"
    http://iopscience.iop.org/2040-8986/labtalk-article/55223
    "Electro-Weak and Electro-Strong Views of Nuclear Transmutations" (slide 12)
    vglobale.it/public/files/2013/Cirps-Widom.pdf

    • Official Post

    My 2cent bet is that EmDrive conserve momentum too (as it says), but that the thrust observed is only an illusion of momentum conservation violation, as we frequently see at the edge of physics.


    Nasa talk of the sea of virtual particle as the substrate... why not... and why not something else electrons.

    Only if you are completely ignorant of quantuam mechanics, could you deduct, that there may be some free energy available from this efect. Let he make it very clear: there is none.

    Pathoskeptic,
    Your remark is ambiguous. No energy gain is claimed.
    Particles with wave forms of equal mean energy can have very different dispersion of momentum spectra.
    With certain waveform shapes, sparse high energy events could occur - even when mean energy is lower.

    A couple of postscripts -
    Another similar paper is -
    "Self accelerating electron Airy beams" - http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2112
    - illustrating that electron (and other particle) fields can self-focus to regions of high energy/momentum.
    No energy is gained, though - analogous to how a magnifying glass focuses light energy.
    I have no idea whether such effects can occur in bulk matter.


    The following paper may indicate how unexpected self-accelerations could be related to LENR -
    "Fusion reactions in plasmas as probe of the high-momentum tail of particle distributions"
    http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0512066


    ABSTRACT: In fusion reactions, the Coulomb barrier selects particles from the high-momentum part of the distribution. Therefore, small variations of the high-momentum tail of the velocity distribution can produce strong effects on fusion rates. In plasmas several potential mechanisms exist that can produce deviations from the standard Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Quantum broadening of the energy-momentum dispersion relation of the plasma quasi-particles modifies the high-momentum tail and could explain the fusion-rate enhancement observed in low-energy nuclear reaction experiments.

    They claim a theoretical method of lengthening the lifetime of radioactive isotopes. It might be possible to lengthen the lifetime of nuclear complexes of deuterium in palladium or nickel and increase their confinement time, thus increasing the nuclear fusion n rate. It might be applicable to other LENR reactions too.

    Hi Lou:
    I found this passage in the archive X article arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0512066


    "The observation that large enhancements have been observed in deuterated metals
    but not in insulators [10, 12] has suggested a possible explanation based on effects of
    the plasma of electrons in the metal [11, 12]. This simplified model with quasi-free valence
    electrons predicts an electron screening distance of the order of the Debye length
    RDeb =pkbT/(4πneff(Ze)2), where neff is the effective density of valence electrons that can
    be treated as quasi-free. This approach reproduces both the correct size of the screening
    potential Ue and its dependence on the temperature: Ue ∝ T−1/2 [10, 12].


    The problem with this explanation is that the resulting RDeb, for the actual experimental
    conditions, is about ten times smaller than the Bohr radius a0; the mean number of quasifree
    particles in the Debye sphere NDeb, the so called Debye number [14], is, therefore, much
    smaller than one: NDeb = neff(4π/3)R3 Deb ≈ (4π/3)neff(a0/10)3 ≈ 3 · 10−5. The picture of
    the Debye screening, which should be a cooperative effect with many participating particles
    (RDeb should be at least greater than the Wigner Seitz radius, which is of the order of the
    Bohr radius), seems not to be applicable and the observed increase of the d(d,p)t reaction
    rate still missing a consistent explanation    . An additional technical inconsistency in the
    Debye screening explanation [10, 12] is the use of a non-degenerate formula for the screening
    radius in a situation where the electrons are degenerate."


    I've been working on a chemonuclear fusion reactor that uses liquid lithium as the reaction medium and fusion target.
    According to Ikegami the DeBroglie wavelengths of electrons in the liquid lithium plasma are spread out over a length of tens of atoms- a lot bigger than the Bohr radius.
    Does that lead to an extension of the screening length too?


    Hello Neil,
    First, I agree self-acceleration seems to violate conservation of energy.
    However, energy is conserved while the momentum spectrum is squeezed into the high amplitude tails.
    For example, one side of the momentum spectrum might evolve (forgive the crude graphics) like this,
    +------ (Low momentum component)
    +------
    +------
    +------ (High momentum component)
    |
    |
    V
    +-
    +---
    +------
    +--------------
    Energy and momentum are still conserved, just as their are in a light beam narrowly focused by a lens.
    I am very reluctant to even try to calculate the de Broglie wavelength or screening effects -
    the math is (for me, at least) intractable, and so many simplifications are required, that the results seem doubtful.
    E.G., presumably huge magnetic fields are generated in the whiplashed region of the wave, but are left out.

    A possibly related postscript -


    If LENR is real, the following paper may be useful in designing EM-stimuli for the reaction -


    "Yield statistics of interpolated superoscillations" - http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.07544
    ABSTRACT: Yield Optimized Interpolated Superoscillations (YOIS) have been recently introduced
    as a means for possibly making the use of the phenomenon of superoscillation practical. In this
    paper we study how good is a superoscillation that is not optimal. Namely, by how much is the
    yield decreased when the signal departs from the optimal one. We consider two situations. One
    is the case where the signal strictly obeys the interpolation requirement and the other is when
    that requirement is relaxed. In the latter case the yield can be increased at the expense of
    deterioration of signal quality. An important conclusion is that optimizing superoscillations may
    be challenging in terms of the precision needed, however, storing and using them is not at that
    sensitive. This is of great importance in physical systems where noise and error are inevitable.


    The paper's refs[21-24] indicate that superoscillations do focus interaction energies to levels
    higher than expected from a simple harmonic analysis - and that nonlinearities further complicate
    the situation. Since Energetics' "Superwave" excitations were superoscillatory, this may be
    relevant to LENR. Also, mixing laser beams of different wavelengths (reported to initiate LENR)
    could generate periodic superoscillatory time spans, especially if there are EM nonlinearities.


    However, in a messy environment, finding the operating regions for optimal generation of
    superoscillations would be a very serious challenge.


    Also, one of the preprint's references is worth mentioning due to its clever, intriguing title -
    [2] Y. Aharonov, S. Popescu and D. Rohrlich, "How can an infra-red photon behave as
    a gamma ray?" Tel-Aviv University Preprint TAUP 1847–90, 1990

    Here is another recent preprint regarding the counterintuitive phenomenon of super-oscillations --


    "Quantum super-oscillation of a single photon"
    ABSTRACT: Super-oscillation is a counter-intuitive phenomenon describing localized fast variations of functions and fields that happen at frequencies higher than the highest Fourier component of their spectra. The physical implications of the effect have been studied in information theory and optics of classical fields, and have been used in super-resolution imaging. As a general phenomenon of wave dynamics, super-oscillations have also been predicted to exist in quantum wavefunctions. Here we report the first experimental demonstration of super-oscillatory behavior of a single quantum object, a photon. The super-oscillatory behavior is demonstrated by tight localization of the photon wavefunction after focusing with a dedicated slit mask designed to create an interference pattern with a sub-wavelength hotspot. The observed hotspot of the single-photon wavefunction is demonstrably smaller than the smallest hotspots that could have been created by the highest-frequency free-space wavevectors available as the result of scattering from the mask.
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.03658
    - Perhaps relevant, if achievable in real materials that are appropriately micro-/nano-structured.


    Also interesting, if much further afield is the recent preprint --
    "Limitless Quantum Energy Teleportation via Qudit Probes" -- http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.03751v1.pdf

    Quote from Lou Pagnucco

    Also interesting, if much further afield is the recent preprint --
    "Limitless Quantum Energy Teleportation via Qudit Probes" -- http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.03751v1.pdf


    This quantum teleportation mechanism is how binding energy produced from the quantum transformation and condensation of atoms is transferred from the site of nuclear activity into the SPP thereby avoiding the coulomb barrier. But there is a multiparticle variation of this teleportation mechanism that applies to black holes only.


    See: Multiboundary Wormholes and Holographic Entanglement


    http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2663

    Some additional (probably rarely occuring) EM-phenomena that one might speculate could initiate anomalous chemical or nuclear reactions --


    Unusual Transitions Made Possible by Superoscillations
    http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.01406v2.pdf


    - or, (if I recall Ehrenfest's theorem and interpret the following two papers correctly) possibly EM fields with proper intensity and orientation can supply a constant acceleration to a trapped charged particle long enough to amplify its high energy momenta spectrum and permit escape/tunneling --


    Relativistic E×B acceleration
    http://journals.aps.org/pre/ab…0.1103/PhysRevE.66.037402


    Relativistic acceleration of charged particles in uniform and mutually perpendicular electric and magnetic fields as viewed in the laboratory frame
    https://www.researchgate.net/p…fd50a684f1cccd4000000.pdf


    Also possibly of interest is --
    A simple and universal setup of quasimomocolor gamma ray source
    http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.00815.pdf

    /* physicists at MIT and Israel's Technion have found that subatomic particles can be induced to speed up all by themselves, almost to the speed of light, without the application of any external forces ... "The electron is gaining speed, getting faster and faster," */


    It works only for so-called Dirac electrons and after we should realize, what these electrons actually are. These are electrons which were constrained in motion (geometrically frustrated) like the mice bouncing inside the narrow hole. So if we give such an electrons opportunity to escape, they will gain a speed during it. This effect is not so different from accelerating of particle gas escaping from jet nozzle with the only difference, it may apply to a single particle.


    /* Could this be related to the EmDrive? */


    Some theories (like this one of Guido Fetta, who develops Cannae drive) involve the formation of real particles from virtual particle in vacuum. These newly formed particles would have a tendency to expand into a larger volume (after all, they're dark matter particles in essence) and the conical shape of EMDrive resonator would orient their momentum, after then. If this theory is correct, then some guidelines could be derived from it. The scalar wave particles ignore metals (and all materials blocking photons and electrons) in general, but they're bounced of superconductors and ferromagnetics, as they interact strongly with Dirac electrons inside these materials. Therefore it would give a meaning to make the EMDrive of superconductive walls in similar way, like the Cannae drive does. Actually the Nassika's thruster is formed just with conical superconductor shape equipped with magnet and it reportedly exhibits drag even without any electromagnetic waves introduced into it (i.e. like true perpetuum mobile).


    /* It seems to be impossible. A violation of conservation of energy. I asked the author for a reprint. */


    I dunno about Nassika's drive, but the Dirac electrons require an energy for their preparation: we must essentially squeeze the normal electrons into a narrow layer, from which these electrons will struggle to escape. So I don't think, this effect violates the conservation of energy as such. It merely points to elasticity of wave function of single free particle, which tends to expand into infinite volume, once it has such an option.

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