Electron-assisted fusion

To bring us back to pressure and density:

Eric Walker wrote:

"In the Physics Forums thread you started, there was a reply that suggested that electron screening contributes a small amount to the overall rate. Did the paper cited mention electrons confined to one dimension? I'm going to guess that it did not."

Longview then wrote:

"At a stellar core density (about 150 g/cc), the opportunity for screening may be quite enhanced. Whether it becomes an important factor.... ?

Another speculative contribution: Muonic CF works because the greater muonic mass means the muonic orbital is about 1/207 of an electron. At a solar core density of 150 times water-- 1 g/cc at stp v. H2 0.0708 g/cc at stp-- 150/0.0708 at such a pressure suggests a volumetric compression factor of over 2100 times is likely. The cube root of 2100 is about 12.5 giving a mean estimate of the effect of solar core pressure on hydride radii of 1/12.5 or 8% of that for liquid H2 at normal stp. For comparison, a Teller-Ulam thermonuclear device relies to great extent on compression of say lithium deuteride to 1000th of the volume at stp, that is an implied radius contraction to 10% of that at stp.

Quote from Jarek

why it doesn't happen in entire volume of Sun?

No condensed matter there.

Quote from Longview

No condensed matter there.

The Sun is a liquid.

Quote from axil

The Sun is a liquid.

The Sun's temperature and pressure gradients places it above all phase boundaries. It consists entirely of a "super critical fluid". I repeat, no condensed matter there. Although I would accept expert opinion to the contrary.

Quote from Jarek

Sure, particles are kind of waves ... but very special waves - not only massive, but also maintaining shape, e.g. charge is not splittable. So technically they are solitons.
Does soliton undergo tunneling?
I have just found one paper and it has negative answer: arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9704208
And generally - what is wrong with electron trajectory between two nuclei - which could give a real explaination?

Whether nucleons are properly solitons or not, they do in fact behave like delocalized waves. Consider the case of a neutron passing by a ¹³⁵Xe nucleus, when the impact parameter b is large:

Under classical assumptions, the neutron would pass right by without being captured by the ¹³⁵Xe nucleus. But in fact what happens with a nontrivial probability is that the neutron is captured. We se a similar phenomenon of neutrons behaving like delocalized waves with neutron diffraction. A neutron may have a well-known nuclear radius, but in its interactions with other things the de Broglie wavelength, which is far larger than the nuclear radius at low energies, is important.

Protons behave like neutrons, with the addition of Coulomb repulsion/attraction.

With regard to your question about electron trajectories: my understanding is that again it is the de Broglie wavelength that is important. Electrons may give the impression of being point particles from a macroscopic view. But at the atomic and nuclear levels, they are highly delocalized, and only localize to nuclear dimensions at very high energies. In addition, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that you’ll have a really hard time confining those electrons to a one-dimensional path between two protons.

With regard to the matter of fusion and LENR, I think you are confusing the question of a practical energy source with the question of what is going on in LENR. But I’ll just mention that theoretically speaking fission releases ~ 100 MeV for medium nuclei, and that alpha decay releases ~ 5 MeV. So if these processes can somehow be induced in medium nuclei, you’ll get a lot of energy (heat, possibly electricity) out of them. And that’s my guess as to what’s actually happening in LENR, whether or not we want it to be fusion instead for practical reasons.

Quote from Longview

The Sun's temperature and pressure gradients places it above all phase boundaries. It consists entirely of a "supercritical fluid". I repeat, no condensed matter there. Although I would accept expert opinion to the contrary.

The evidence from LENR shows that the Nuclear active environment can exist at temperatures that are as high as that of the Sun. Magnetism on the surface of the metalized hydrogen protects the metalized hydrogen crystal from high energy impact of hot particles. The missiner effect produced by the superatom nature of the metalized hybrid acts like the coulomb barrier that works to protect the superatom metalized hydride crystal just like it protects the nucleus of the atom. This is why the liquid form of metalize hydride can exist at temperatures beyond the vaporization point of ordinary matter.

This sort of magnetic protection allows cavitation to erode the hardest of materials including diamond. Water becomes harder than diamond because of the magnetic protection that cavitation generates.

Quote from axil

The evidence from LENR shows that the Nuclear active environment can exist at temperatures that are as high as that of the Sun.

I'm certain Ed Storms would not see his concept (NAE) in that assertion.

Quote from Longview

I'm certain Ed Storms would not see his concept (NAE) in that assertion.

Rossi's QuarkX and plasma based LENR systems where the temperature in the reaction zone stands at 4000C. In a LENR reactor meltdown, stainless steel vaporized and so does alumina and even sapphire. Ed Storms cannot explain how such high temperatures can be produced by the NAE. The NAE must continue to exist at a temperature that is higher than the highest vaporization temperature that exists in a LENR reactor meltdown.

Condensed matter (iiquids, such as carbon and tungsten) can exist well beyond 4000 ^oC. However the concept of NAE may require a solid substrate... not much to choose from there: tantalum hafnium carbide at 3,942 ^oC. Recently surpassed, at least in theory, by hafnium carbon nitride at 4,126 ^oC

Quote from Jarek

However, if you are saying that it's due to tunneling, so why it also doesn't apply to other similar nuclei ???
Tunneling is about crossing a barrier, while here it seems the nucleus just kind of swallowed.
So 135 for xenon is a large mass ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon ) - it has much more neutrons than it would like to have - it is believed that abundant neutrons can create kind of halo around the core of the nucleus ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_nucleus ) - this seems a good candidate for looking for the explanation (better models of nuclei), while tunneling would also need neighboring nuclei to follow.

Yes, the neutron is just captured. Because there is no potential barrier, as you point out, there is no tunneling in the case of radiative capture for 135Xe. It is not really the case that 135Xe has many more neutrons than it would like to have. It badly wants another neutron, which is why the radiative capture cross section is so large. Whether halo nuclei are involved or not is unclear; my suspicion is that there's no relation between halo nuclei and the neutron capture cross section of 135Xe, but one is often surprised by things.

The 135Xe neutron capture process is relevant, though, to the discussion of tunelling in the pp chain in the sun: here we have a nucleon (a neutron) behaving very unlike a billiard ball. In tunneling across the Coulomb barrier, protons similarly behave unlike billiard balls.

Quote from Jarek

How do you imply from Heisenberg that electron objectively doesn't have a position in a given moment?

How do you measure the position of a big, diffuse blob? To centimeter accuracy, what is the precise location of a huge jellyfish or a cloud of dust?

Quote from Jarek

Heisenberg principle restricts measurement - that we cannot measure perfectly e.g. position and momentum.

I don't think it's necessary to sort that out the question of the Copenhagen interpretation for the point to be valid about it being improbable that you'll be able to confine electrons to a line extending between two protons.

Quote from Jarek

Regarding 135Xe, sure it is a complex problem, but I don't see it related to tunneling(?) - otherwise, neighboring nuclei would be also affected.

The 135Xe wants another neutron enough that the radiative capture cross section is 2,000,000 barns. Neighboring nuclei do not want the neutron the same amount, so the capture cross section is much lower. The higher capture cross section of 135Xe means that it is affected by the passing neutron more than neighboring nuclei, in that it captures it when others don't.

Quote from Jarek

Do you have any argument that electrons objectively don't have (lose) positions/trajectories in vicinity of proton (inside atom)?

Do you have any argument that electrons should be treated like tiny, localized billiard balls in the present context, confined between the protons? You argue that the elementary charge cannot be split up, but what is an elementary charge? Is having an electron be a diffuse thing at low energies equivalent to splitting up the elementary charge?

Quote from Eric Walker

The 135Xe neutron capture process is relevant, though, to the discussion of tunelling in the pp chain in the sun: here we have a nucleon (a neutron) behaving very unlike a billiard ball. In tunneling across the Coulomb barrier, protons similarly behave unlike billiard balls.

Here a picture out of the IAEA Atlas for neutron capture crosssections:

Not only the cross section is very high (at low energies.. as usual) also the peek is very broad. But many other elements have high barn sween-spots for selective Neutron energies too. It's definitively a point we must follow.

Quote from Eric Walker

Whether halo nuclei are involved or not is unclear;

@@ Eric: According to the most recent papers above Z= 20 Halo nuclei may not exist, due to negative coulomb screening.

Quote from Jarek

Please give finally a single argument that this elementary charge is objectively smeared over a relatively huge volume, e.g. of micrometer size Rydberg molecule ( physicsworld.com/cws/article/n…-are-the-size-of-bacteria ).
That quantum probability cloud is not just an effective description, average over time.
What is electric field (affecting surrounding particles) created by elementary charge smeared to micrometer size Rydberg molecule?

Jarek: QM is a good model (and only a model) for calculating charge densities and charge transport. But always under the limits, that a statistics exists and no special effects (barriers) disrupt the infinite integrals. (What is a contradiction in itself.) QM never ever will provide us a basic nature constant except in experiments where the integrals mutually cancel out.

Just one example; For the calculation of the electron g-factor You can sum the results up 20'000 Feynman diagrams (recently completed with a perfect match) or you can use the "simple" Maxwell'ian derived formula of Mill's, which he got out of the spin-flip transition of the hydrogen electron: (p.105 GUTCP 2016 R. Mills)

Only one "free" parameter was left, the finestructure constant! (Interesting?)

One more point; The charge density of the electron at r=0 must be 0 and not 1/r which is an other QM problem...

Conclusion: QM may play a role in exploring some LENR phenomenas but only a minor one!

Cavity based light matter coupling in central to the LENR reaction. Who understands what the heavily dressed Quantum Robi model brings to the LENR table? Yes, electrons are an important factor in LENR but why? Has anybody written a paper on this subject?