I had a hard time understanding the precise mechanism involved in bringing about nuclear reactions in Adrea Calaon's theory.
But in Calaon's slides he proposes a number of possible reactions, a good portion of which have neutrinos as daughters. This means the weak interaction would be involved. The weak interaction is incredibly slow compared either to the electromagnetic force or to the nuclear force. For this reason reactions involving the electromagnetic and strong interactions can be expected to outcompete those involving the weak interaction by many orders of magnitude in any normal circumstance, apart from radioactive decay (which is not a "reaction"). (This is why the sun's fuel is consumed so slowly.) If Calaon's theory requires that any of those reactions involving the weak interaction appear in significant quantities, he needs to explain what makes the weak interaction speed up. (This is also one of the difficulties that Ed Storms faces.)
This theory seems promising, at least to me. Makes more sense then a lot of the other theories, not that there are many 
Either way, I like the integration of the strong force into electromagnetism, although I know that doesn't originate from this paper.
Calaon's slides he proposes a number of possible reactions, a good portion of which have neutrinos as daughters. This means the weak interaction would be involved. The weak interaction is incredibly slow compared either to the electromagnetic force or to the nuclear force. For this reason reactions involving the electromagnetic and strong interactions can be expected to outcompete those involving the weak interaction by many orders of magnitude in any normal circumstance, apart from radioactive decay (which is not a "reaction")
First, welcome to this Forum, Eric Walker.
Andrea Calaon is proposing a specific mechanism for the conditions that are not "ordinary". He is not the first, but certainly makes an interesting, if not compelling case.
Your (Eric Walker's) comparative rate question is, in my present view, not an issue. High activation energies make rates infinitesimal (consider diamond stability at ordinary temperatures, whose decomposition is favored and predictable based on delta H i.e. enthalpy, but whose activation energy for decomposition to amorphous carbon is very high). Heat and catalysis are surely the general category of mechanism for condensed matter nuclear fusion.
But, I would not expect the exact nature of the likely CF/LENR or EMNR catalytic mechanism to be obvious.
Physicists, chemists, chemical physicists, physical chemists and the like have spent now nearly one hundred years in the effort to understand exact chemical catalytic mechanisms. That such processes work chemically is undeniable, such mechanisms underlie industrial processes ranging from petroleum reforming to pharmaceutical manufacture. Catalysis in condensed matter nuclear reactions is likely at least a significant portion of the general mechanism---It appears to me that Andrea Calaon is offering aspects of the specific mechanism while answering many of the long standing critical comments from the physics community ---for example Huizenga's three "miracles". [Which, may have been deposed in other ways before.]
Since neutrinos are "everywhere all the time" and in every form-- apparently varying on some Planck determinate, time-constrained and perhaps universal hidden variable-- neutrino accounting (originally a spin and mass conservation construct) hardly suggests a credible critique of Calaon's interesting and quite comprehensive theory. Radioactive decay is a "reaction" if one regards neutrinos as a "reagent" even if of high and variable concentration and perhaps not strictly "limiting". Keeping in mind that neutrinos are also a time variant form of their own antiparticle, their own flavor and anti-flavor and even their mass variants... etc.
Even if neutrino fluxes are seen not to be involved, radioactive decay can still be regarded as a "reaction", in that case a "zero order reaction"-- that is a reaction not dependent on the concentration or temperature of the decaying isotope. Even then, one has to regard the occasional reports of chemical and physical effects on "natural" decay rates as potentially suggestive of higher order reaction effects in radioactive decay.
See:
http://profmattstrassler.com/a…nd-neutrino-oscillations/
And:
http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Ph…ates/Zero-Order_Reactions
Dear Eric Walker,
thank you for considering my theory and for the detailed and interesting comment.
About your question:
Please consider that all reactions producing neutrons, but one, are endothermic and require large amounts of energy. So normally they will not be running. There is only one reaction that is exothermic and can produce neutrons: it is the number 6.1. In this reaction the neutron comes form the decay of He5. The production of He5 does not require the weak interaction.
The reactions inside the electron are highly perturbed due to the continuous crossing of the electron charge, and probably (this it is only a qualitative assertion) unstable isotopes do not survive and are not produced. So even reaction 6.1 should not run either.
You are right when you say that many of the listed reactions are only theoretical, but do not actually take place at any significant rate. I will need to clarify on this point.
About the slowness of the weak interaction I agree with you. All reactions involving the weak interaction are way less likely than those which do not.
However in the cases where there are no possible stable outcomes from the combinations of the nuclei trapped "inside" the electron, apart from the reaction/s where the electron participates, no reaction will take place until the unlikely participation of the electron will lead to new nuclei.
Best regrads
Andrea Calaon
Dear Eric Walker,
thank you for considering my theory and for the detailed and interesting comment.
About your question:
Thanks for your excellent efforts, Andrea Calaon! Please see also my reply to Eric Walker above.
Longview
Hi Andrea,
Thank you for responding directly to my comment. An interesting deck of slides you've put together. I'm still trying to understand the precise mechanism you propose, but it seems to be refreshingly different.
Please consider that all reactions producing neutrons, but one, are endothermic and require large amounts of energy.
I had in mind neutrino-producing reactions rather than neutron-producing reactions, i.e., ones where leptons are a daughter. Your theory may not require them to occur at any significant rate. But if the daughters are important for explaining something else, there will need to be an additional explanation about the weak interaction. (I think you've clarified that these reactions are rate-limited in the expected way.)
Regards,
Eric
Dear backyardfusion,
Thank you for your appreciation of my theory.
Dear Longview,
thank you for your comments and for evaluating my theory as a "compelling case".
I hope you and others will also criticize me, in any form, and suggest changes/improvements.
Best regards
Andrea
I've just updated the presentation about my theory. I corrected a few mistakes and cleaned old staff.
I hope it is now more consistent and clearer, especially for the NAE.
I added a "reddish" slide with my concerns about the neutral radiation.
The link is here:
http://lenr-calaon-explanation…ted_nuclear_reactions.pdf
I hope someone will be so kind as to criticize and suggest changes, corrections, ... may be with suggestions for improvements as well.
From 5th slide of http://www.claudiopace.it/wp-c…eare-non-%C3%A8-forte.pdf :
"When another massive particle that has a magnetic moment is immersed into the previous field, the magnetic part of the Lorentz force (F=q v^B) generates a “strong” (oscillating) attractive force that can overcome the electrostatic repulsion"
Definitely electrons and their magnetic moments are crucial to understand LENR.
However, I completely disagree that the magnetic moment itself can overcome the electrostatic repulsion.
The effect is very subtle - we get kind of dual Lorentz force - for magnetic dipole (electron) traveling in electric field (of nucleus).
To see it, we can change the frame of reference: such that magnetic dipole stops and charge travels - it travels in magnetic field of the dipole. So there appears Lorentz force, which through 3rd Newton law acts on the dipole.
formal derivation (12th page of https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12405967/freefall.pdf ) :
It leads to a very weak force perpendicular to electron's trajectory - it seems only essential while falling on the nucleus - bending the trajectory and preventing collision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fall_atomic_model
thread: Electron-assisted fusion
Dear Jarek,
thank you for your comment. I understood my short description of the magnetic attraction mechanism of Dallacasa and Cook was too short and incomprehensible.
I have now updated the presentation on my page:
http://lenr-calaon-explanation…ted_nuclear_reactions.pdf
Now on slide 5 you can find a few more words.
What you describe is the effect of a given vector potential on a magnetic dipole. I haven't been through your descriptions, but I guess it is what we can find in books on electromagnetism. Definitely it is correct, but, as you say, it is a very very small force, if compared to the huge force generated by the mechanism of Dallacasa and Cook that I was trying to summarize on page 5 of my presentation. The magnetic mechanism of Dallacasa and Cook gives binding energies of the order of [MeV] for two nucleons at 2 [fm] distance.
Best regards
Dear Andrea,
There are known lots of dualities between electric and magnetic field ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…electricity_and_magnetism) ), like looking related Aharonov-Casher effect ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharonov%E2%80%93Casher_effect ) : for magnetic dipole traveling in electric field, used for example to get interference of neutrons or fluxons (Abrikosov vortex).
However, these are nearly unknown - have you seen Aharonov-Casher in any texbook? (I have to admit that I have created its Wikipedia article)
The dual Lorentz force: for magnetic dipole traveling in electric field, seems to be even less known - you can rather find only its quantum analogue: the spin-orbit interaction.
I have talked with electron experimentalist on EmQM15 and he said that he has met it somewhere, that it is known in his society, but he couldn't give me any source.
Have anybody here heard about it?
Anyway, look at the numbers - this is an extremely weak effect, usually a few orders of magnitude smaller than Coulomb.
I have calculated corrections for the hydrogen Bohr's orbit, and the resulting correction was below 10^-6.
It is proportional to v/r^3, so it can become essential for very large velocity and small distance - while free-fall on the nucleus.
Best regards
Dear Alain,
Thank for you appreciation of my efforts.
Actually my theory is not much about QM. It uses some consequences of QM, but does not introduce any typical QM effect.
I can tell you that I was contacted by a group of experimentalists who is now trying to put my theory to the test. The theory will be used for guiding the experimental efforts.
My theory suggests that gaseous or liquid Li is the best NAE, so the suggestions of my theory are not too far off from the reactor of Andrea Rossi.
Zr(IV) and Ca(IV) are found in solids (at least the first exists for sure). The problem with solids is that the protons crossing them cannot travel farther than a few atomic layers, so the volume of the NAE will always be quite small if compared to the total reactor volume. Only with gaseous/liquid Li it can become possible to have the NAE occupying a large portion of the reactor volume, and so reach the power density necessary for industrially devices.
There are many possible arguments against my theory:
Many other weak points can be listed. In my defense I can say that I haven’t seen a complete (without unknown but fundamental missing bits) theory for LENR that matches, or does not contradict, so many evidences of Cold Fusion, including the radiation of Randell Mills, the strange radiation, the unusual preference for stable nuclei (at least a qualitative reason for a preference, differently from common neutron hits), the production of tritium without neutrons, the explanation of the NAE in totally different chemical environments, the possibility of organic NAE, ...
So far I haven't found experimental results that go against the basic of what I am proposing.
Edmund Storms suggested that my theory would not be able to the explain the NAE in experiments with palladium without lithium in the electrolyte. However in those experiments palladium is covered by a blue oxide layer rich in N(III). And that layer is known to be a key ingredient …
The next important step would probably be trying to prove that the nuclear force is electromagnetic by calculating precisely the binding energy of many/all nuclei with the Dallacasa-Cook approach.
About the results of Iwamura. You are mentioning a VERY important point.
As you say, the results seem to suggest that there is a sort of “even deuteron addition rule”, because many elements transmute producing X +2d, +4d and +6d. I think that this rule, which Edmund Storms mentioned to me as well, has nothing physical, and is instead the consequence of a simple fact:
The series of stable isotopes in the nuclide table has often a zigzag profile. This means that in many cases the stable isotopes are at a distance of even number of deuterons (diagonal move in the nuclide chart).
A clear example is Sr88. Only adding 2d or 4d the fusion can lead to stable isotopes, which in this case are Zr92 and Mo96.
Another example is Ba138: only adding 4d one gets the stable Nd146, and with other 2d one gets Sm150.
Starting instead from Ba137, the only stable nuclides on the diagonal are: Nd145 and Sm149, which correspond to the addition of 4d and 6d respectively.
Ca44 +2d = Ti48; a further possible step should be adding other 2d and reaching Cr52.
Cs133 is an important exception to the idea of the addition of even numbers of d, as opposed to the possibility of adding as well single deuterons, neutrons or protons. The only two stable isotopes that can be reached on the nuclide table moving along the diagonal (addition of deuterons) are Ba135, Pr141 and Nd143. These three nuclides would need respectively 1d, 4d and 5d. However the experimental result suggest that the real products are La139, Ce140, Pr141 and Ce142, which require (2d + 2n), (3d+1n), 4d, (4d+1p) respectively. The less abundant is Pr141, which is the only one that follows the “even deuterium addition rule”. So the example of Cs133 shows that the even (deuterium) addition rule is only apparently a rule. What happens is that the Cold Fusion mechanism is able to add not only deuterons, but also neutrons and protons alone. And it can do it by adding these ingredients in amounts as large as 2 or more deuterons at a time.
How can this happen in the framework of my theory? Which I think was your question.
A Hyd forms in the NAE (Deuteronius, for example, as in Iwamura’s reactors). It attaches to a nucleus Nu, so that d and Nu are both “inside” the electron. Let us suppose that the sum of d and Nu does not lead to a stable nuclide. In other words Nu+n, Nu+d, and Nu+p are not stable nuclides. So they remain near each other inside the electron. The new system made of e+d+Nu has the same charge of Nu, so the electron orbitals of Nu do not change (chemical invariance). Another deuteronius, ed2, forms and approaches the system e+d+Nu. ed2 is neutral so it can get near to the e+d+Nu system exactly as its predecessor could approach Nu. Here it is the difficult part: what happens? My guess is that the two electron ZB “touch” each other and the d in ed2 manages to enter the e+d+Nu system while the second electron flies away.
So there is now a new system: e+d+d+Nu1. The two deuterons and Nu are all “inside” a single electron. If any combination of the new bunch of nucleons is stable, that combination forms and the Hyd breaks apart.
Thanks for your ambitious efforts, Andrea Calaon. It is refreshing to see your approach, that is novel and comprehensive theory combined with genuine respect for experimental confirmation.
Have you learned that Ed Storms is quite certain that "blue Pd oxide" is simply a thin layer of what, if thicker, would simply be black Pd oxide? If I understand it correctly, he is certain it is not a nitride. I suspect there may be evidence confirming or denying the nitride contention, or that it may be easily demonstrated.
As you say, the results seem to suggest that there is a sort of “even deuteron addition rule”, because many elements transmute producing X +2d, +4d and +6d.
Note that 2d are the same number of nucleons as 4He. In other words, Iwamura's results might be explained by alpha decay of heavier isotopes down to the ones that are found in abundance in his studies.
&"Have you learned that Ed Storms is quite certain that "blue Pd oxide" is simply a thin layer of what, if thicker, would simply be black Pd oxide? If I understand it correctly, he is certain it is not a nitride. I suspect there may be evidence confirming or denying the nitride contention, or that it may be easily demonstrated."
The blue discoloration on palladium is probably a ~4000 Angstrom thick layer of oxide. I've tested palladium that for permeation studies had formed a blue surface. Spot testing with hydrogen indicated palladium oxide although thin films on platinum group metals can be deceptive using flame tests.
@Jarek
Thank you for the reference to the Aharonov-Casher effect, the dual to the Aharonov–Bohm effect. I didn’t know about it. My interpretation is that in both cases, particles, together with their wave function, (or their pilot wave for Hidden Variable people like me …) tell us that their behaviour depends on the entire past history. The potentials in fact carry information about the complete time history, while field are only information about the present. Adding to this what the delayed choice of Wheeler shows, I conclude that the pilot-wave/wave function does not experience time, and we probably are just visitors in a block-universe. Non-locality and EPR is just a consequence of the timeless nature of the pilot-waves/wave function.
@axil
You say: “How do you explain the 10 billion K-mesons coming from the Holmlid experiment using a laser shot?”
I would need to carefully study the experimental evidence of Sveinn Ólafsson and Leif Holmlid. I will only make a few general comments on previous finds described in “Neutral multi-MeV/u particles from laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0): accurate two-collector timing and magnetic analysis”
The flux they measured consists mainly of neutral particles, which the authors interpret as fragments of ultra - dense hydrogen HN(0). “Neutrons are excluded as the particles detected, as can be concluded from the weak penetration properties of the signal - generating particles.” They say also: “The behavior observed in the experiments indicates neutral particles containing both positive and negative fundamental particles, thus neutral clusters of H(0)”.
My guess (using my theory) is instead that they are producing Hyd, which, by the way, contain both positive and negative fundamental particles.
The authors say that the neutron flux is “small”, attributing this to the high density of D(0) …
Energies:
The Nd:YAG laser wavelength of 532 [nm] corresponds to an energy of 2.33 [eV]. The catalyst of Ólafsson and Holmlid contains potassium. The 5th ionization energy of K is 82.66 [eV], so, K has a core orbital at precisely 2.325 [eV] from the coupling. You can read the data on page 25 of my presentation. On the presentation I simplified the coupling energy to 85 [eV], whereas the precise value is 84.985 [eV], so that the precise distance is 2.325 and not 2.34 [eV]. So the combination of Nd:YAG and K seems to be not bad at all! I hadn't noticed the coincidence. It may well be that the easiest way to produce Hyd is actually this!!
The K-meson thing is not clear to me. I need to read the article.
@Longview and ogfusionist
Blue-coloured palladium:
In his book “The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction” Edmund Storms writes about blue-coloured palladium: “... palladium can be heated in air above 900 [C] for time sufficient to make the surface rich in oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. This results in the formation of a very active blue-coloured palladium oxide.”
