Ultra-dense hydrogen and Rydberg matter—a more informal general discussion thread

The lens has been removed from the webcam/sensor, so it is not affecting it. There's only an aluminium foil and black electrical tape in front of it.

Making a functional bifilar coil is not at all a simple task, unfortunately. In the end after making the coil build up a sufficiently thick oxide layer (accelerating the process with KOH solution) I managed to make it work, but it might not be reliable to run. The issue is that the windings easily short-circuit with each other.

EDIT: so, typically, after verifying that the coil works and building a preliminary oxide layer, I would apply a coating of catalyst paste and start increasing temperatures slowly, making sure that holes or bubbles don't form.

EDIT: the dried red iron oxide material at elevated temperatures just below incandescence turns dark.

EDIT: unfortunately it is now internally shorting so it is not working as intended.

EDIT: I might have managed to repair it by squeezing the affected area with a pair of pliers and then repairing it with more catalyst paste. Long-term reliability is questionable, though.

Alan Smith

It appears that more recently there have been different measurements with regular electrons that seemed to agree with the smaller radius inferred with muons, while still disagreeing with old ones.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6457/1007 (free access)

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Unraveling the proton puzzle

The discrepancy between the proton size deduced from the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen and the average, textbook value based on regular (electronic) hydrogen has puzzled physicists for nearly a decade. One possible resolution could be that electrons interact with protons in a different way than muons do, which would require “new physics.” Bezginov et al. measured the Lamb shift in electronic hydrogen, which allowed for a direct comparison to the Lamb shift measured in muonic hydrogen. The two results agreed, but the discrepancy with the averaged value remains.

It's mostly over my head and I don't see intuitive connections to UDH, although perhaps the Lamb shift (a difference in energy between the 2s and 2p excited states in hydrogen atoms, which was not expected in the Bohr model) used here for the measurements may in itself have some implications for Rydberg matter formed with hydrogen atoms.

Rob Woudenberg

One thing that in my opinion is not clearly explained in the latest publication by Holmlid et al. is that if H atoms are Rydberg atoms by definition and can by excited to high states (=large, long-range interacting) by other means (e.g. collisions as suggested), they should be able to form RM on their own at sufficiently high densities, even if the process is going to be difficult. I think JulianBianchi mentioned a while back that diffusion through the bulk of metals and metal hydride decomposition may give excited atoms; below are some references that he provided:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ar970030f

https://www.researchgate.net/p…cies_using_metal_hydrides

So this could be a possible mechanism other than the usage of alkali promoters which could take place on the surface or in nanogaps inside the material, although according to Holmlid, Rydberg atom formation from desorption processes needs non-metal surfaces.

By the way, the bifilar coil installed earlier at the very least does not seem to have helped and at the worst it might have caused a slow decrease of the average CMOS-based particle detection signal. I still get what looks like paired spots. On the right there is a collection (composite image) of all spots and streaks in the past 20 hours.

In the past few days I have kept the pellet at moderate temperatures (below incandescence) though, so that could be a factor too, as may are somewhat lower ambient temperatures than earlier on. A correlation to cosmic rays could be possible too, but I haven't found good data yet for that.

I could turn the rig off for the time being to see if the signal increases again on its own.

Rob Woudenberg

I just use sci-hub or z-library when I need a paper. It's probably best not to upload or directly link them on the forum, though.

In the past, Holmlid has suggested that the energy from strong laser light may also directly desorb adsorbed atoms directly in a Rydberg state, so that's a (another) possible external excitation method that should not require alkali metals. Excitation from incident radiation is also how RM is proposed to form in the interstellar Space from adsorbed atoms on dust particles. Though, in actual experiments, if alkali metals provide significant help in this regard it would be best to employ them, even as slight impurity.

EDIT: See for instance: (PDF) A novel model for the interpretation of the unidentified infrared (UIR) bands from interstellar space: deexcitation of Rydberg Matter (researchgate.net)

(although this is a 20-years old paper and I'm not sure if it's up to date with Holmlid's current thinking, for what it's worth)

The bifilar Kanthal coil I made a few days ago works ok at average temperatures, but if I increase them too much it shorts out, maybe due to thermal expansion. With bifilar coils if one or two windings short-circuit, the entire coil is affected. In any case, 30 minutes ago I turned the catalyst off to see over the coming days if there will be a visible difference in the data trend.

Earlier tests were made at higher temperatures with a standard coil, a different configuration and stronger magnetic field, but I started collecting CMOS imagery after I began them, so I don't have true background measurements. It could still be that what I'm observing now is just natural variation due to cosmic rays or other factors.

The GRC/Forsley system uses considerably more energetic radiation than laser light from what I read (this article mentions 2.9 MeV gamma rays), so it's not clear if it is exactly causing the same outcomes. It will [photo]dissociate and ionize the hydride though, and the ionized hydrogen atoms at high density will recombine with electrons forming at least transiently high excitation states. So it's possible that RM and then UDH may be formed in the process.

Again, according to Holmlid, thermal desorption of atoms in Rydberg states requires non-metal surfaces, but perhaps—I have no idea—more energetic methods can achieve the same without them.

There's also a suggestion in his latest paper that various transition metals form on their surface a carbon layer with thermal cycling, which would be active for Rydberg state desorption: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.02.221

Rob Woudenberg

The next paragraph in the same paper by Holmlid I linked above suggests that carbon may come even from manual application of Aquadag (colloidal graphite), sputtering, or decomposition of hydrocarbons on the hot metal surface. So, it does not seem that it has to be a specific type of carbon surface (like for example carbides, etc).

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

can

Carbon layer to condense H RM is also mentioned in the patent application of Holmlid / Svensson describing an efficient implementation of a thermionic energy converter using alkali metals to form RM.

This was also described in the papers written at the time. Metal surfaces without a graphite layer would not produce Rydberg states in desorption. This was concluded after eventually using iridium, which does not absorb graphite—this latter property also being mentioned in the latest paper on the catalysts for H(0) production.

Rate constants for cesium ion and atom desorption on iridium with graphite islands: parallel processes studied by field reversal

https://doi.org/10.1016/0039-6028(91)90605-R (1991)

They would typically use ethylene gas to form a graphite layer on the hot metal surface.

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

Maybe also related: Deuterium Energetics Limited claims ⁴He production when combining Deuterium and Carbon Nano Tubes.

Possibly, if these nanotubes are able on their own to dissociate deuterium into separate atoms. Otherwise, as Holmlid pointed out in the recent paper, you need also a metal surface which can do this.

Quote from Rob Woudenberg

Is [carbon] maybe missing in your practical setup?

Some metal oxides, in particular KFeO2 which is the active phase in styrene catalysts, directly desorb alkali atoms in a Rydberg state upon heating at elevated temperatures, so it should not be strictly needed with them. At higher ones it is even possible to observe the material "fuming" or perhaps even burning from the emitted potassium reacting with oxygen, and I haven't seen that at the temperatures used recently (nor felt in my nose). So, the emitted alkali atom density in earlier tests was higher, and this was suggested to be a very important feature of the catalysts in the latest paper by Holmlid:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.02.221

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[...] It is also concluded that the crucial feature of the catalyst is to provide excited alkali atoms at a sufficiently high surface density and in this way enabling formation and desorption of H(0) clusters.

I do have however occasionally admitted organic compounds (like acetone or ethanol) which decomposed on the hot surface, and the precursor iron oxide mixture even included graphite, which should have formed cementite (iron carbide / Fe3C) to some extent, so carbon was often present in some form.

Besides the difference in magnetic field, also possibly the gas flow, which was lower, might not necessarily have been optimal. Earlier I both applied a treatment or catalyst paste on the interior walls of the steel tube, and inserted treated rod or twisted wires inside of it, but I wasn't monitoring CMOS imagery at the time, so I don't know if the event rate was initially high(er) due to these differences or just from natural background signal variation.