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

Some of the scientific doubts have been hinted by Sveinn Ólafsson in the recent ICCF presentation and the previous LF interview. I believe that others are to be detailed in upcoming publication(s?). SÓ and SZG reproduced many of Holmlid's observations in their laboratories and even made new ones (for example peculiar tracks in a cloud chamber when UDH is formed), but they do not entirely agree with his interpretation of the results. This does not mean that the research is all wrong but it likely puts into question the feasibility of manufacturing reactors for power generation within short timeframes as sometimes suggested, which must be why NFE was founded in the first place.

Wyttenbach

I don't think US army interests have anything to do with this.

There are issues pertaining for example to how the laser-induced signal is extrapolated over 4pi to get an apparently very large gain, or to the energy calibration of the photomultiplier tube (employed mainly for detecting the 'spontaneous signal' without a laser) using a Cs-137 source. Also, if the particles observed (as an electrical current from metal collectors in the flight path of the particles) are not mainly mesons from nuclear annihilation, the total emitted energy per laser pulse may be much lower than suggested, and muon-catalyzed fusion energy might not be feasible.

These issues could be "fundamental" if the corporate mission is to rapidly deploy or make commercially-viable energy production systems, even just as prototypes for licensing.

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Some of the scientific doubts have been hinted by Sveinn Ólafsson in the recent ICCF presentation and the previous LF interview [...]

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There are issues pertaining for example to how the laser-induced signal is extrapolated over 4pi to get an apparently very large gain, or to the energy calibration of the photomultiplier tube (employed mainly for detecting the 'spontaneous signal' without a laser) using a Cs-137 source. Also, if the particles observed (as an electrical current from metal collectors in the flight path of the particles) are not mainly mesons from nuclear annihilation, the total emitted energy per laser pulse may be much lower than suggested, and muon-catalyzed fusion energy might not be feasible.

Just to provide a source, some time ago I made transcriptions of those videos from Sveinn Ólafsson, but I never posted them before because they still need editing and I didn't manage to understand everything SÓ said without undue effort. The points above however are clear enough to be quoted below:

From the LF interview:

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[14:04] So and here you see the [?] that I have on a neutron source, there, which I can use to see if neutrons affecting this Leif's detector, and they're not affecting it in any way. And then I have just a cloud chamber and I'm gonna let you show you some new movie afterwards. And this muon detector was what Leif started with. It's simple: it's just a PMT and aluminium foil, and you see this red curve here; without active chamber there's no activity, and then we have active chamber and then this detector is detecting this stuff. The problem with this detector it's impossible to calibrate any energy out of it, although we have published papers about it, but I don't believe in it.

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[19:40] [Ólafsson] Well, we can replicate these time-of-flight measurements, and everything he sees, we see. But when we try to use more robust methods of say detecting muons, they don't show up anything, like... because muons are actually easy to see. So this "strange" radiation we see and... but not are real muons signal like we would expect to see.

[20:10] [Smith] Though of course muons come in several flavors, though we may be...

[20:15] [Ólafsson] Yeah, but they, if... the intensity that Leif is claiming is not... your room should light up with radioactivity.

[20:27] [Smith] Yes, yeah. But you look healthy to me [laughs].

[20:35] [Ólafsson] Yeah, we see a signal but we don't see this strong expected phase, like: when muon comes to stop it usually sends out X-rays, a lot of X-rays and gammas and neutrons. So, we don't see them. So, I suspect that these pictures here probably indicate that we are accelerating the protons in the Rydberg phase, or UHD phase to a huge kinetic energy.

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From "ICCF23-PL-10 Experimental setup for studying Rydberg matter of Hydrogen - Theoretical and Computational Studies - Sveinn Ólafsson" on http://ikkem.com/iccf-23_oralab.php (http://ikkem.com/iccf23/MP4/3c-PL10.mp4)

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[11:27] And [the signal interpreted as being due to mesons] is half the speed of light, so it shouldn't be a light. But light is not only on light, it can be a microwave pulse, because if you take a microwave source, let's say a microwave pulse coming here, then this line is not [?] microwave waveguide, but very lossy one because it's stainless steel, and usually copper. And the travel time of microwave pulse is always less than the speed of light and it depends on actually on the wavelength of the microwave and the diameter of the tube.

[12:08] So we have been trying to rule out a microwave pulse, and light pulse. And we are still not convinced. Hopefully with the newest experiments we can rule that out. But here is like something which is too fast I think. I mean... This I did in Iceland. This is almost speed of light, so when you start to wonder is: are we really measuring particles here or not? But sometimes... this occasion in Iceland, is that the base pressure is actually among the lowest, much lower than Leif has done, so this is the cleanest system so far.

[12:58] This we will have [?] soon try to repeat and get rid of this nagging microwave idea.

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[20:15] Also, what I didn't mention is that Sindre has seen occasionally lot of neutrons, but not every time. So there is the possibility... before, I described this equipment and here is the target we shoot with a laser, you should be, could be accelerating protons from this condensed state of hydrogen. And if you have these very powerful protons, say 40 MeV or something, anything it hits it spallates neutrons out of it. But the strange thing is that not happens not every time. So sometimes looks like target it giving neutrons, but sometimes not. It is... yeah, a puzzle.

Cydonia

The 'spontaneous' signal (the signal obtained without using laser excitation; just by admitting H/D through the catalysts, thus similar to what is done in many LENR experiments) is easily observed but it is indeed tiny. In fact, the signal is so small that it needs a highly sensitive detector with a very high gain and a very low background noise to be observed, typically in Holmlid-type studies in the form of a photomultiplier tube (PMT) put in a completely dark enclosure and capable of counting background photons ("dark counts") when no external signal (photons in the enclosure or UDH-caused signal) is present.

With used equipment and some adaptation work it shouldn't take a very large budget to build such detector; I think its should be possible to build with less than 1000$ if you can assemble your own signal amplifying electronics.

As for the origin, it's not clear. It turned out that radiation sources of different types and energies capable of affecting the PMT give similar spectra due to PMT glass scintillation (photons generated by the PMT glass bulb from incident radiation), so the spectrum obtained from the PMT due to the spontaneous UDH signal does not give useful energy information. Therefore, the beta-signal observed so far with it could be due to be muons or perhaps something else, including completely new radiation types. Monitoring the PMT photon count rate can still be very useful and of high scientific interest since many different sources and systems that involve hydrogen can give the same signal. Holmlid has suggested that even ordinary catalytic reactors could give 'muons'.

Cloud chamber results from both Sveinn Ólafsson and Sindre Zeiner-Gundersen also indicate that there might be something new and unusual. However typical small (DIY / do-it-yourself) cloud chambers are inconvenient to use and it's difficult to get out useful real-time data from them.

My personal opinion is that it's possible that other very low noise/very high gain equipment could be used to detect the same spontaneous signal, but then this could mean that the UDH signal is caused by a general form of noise that affects all electronic equipment similarly (but not quite like) to what strong radiofrequency waves do. So, positive detection of radiation with even high-end electronic equipment (e.g. semiconductor detectors; Si, HPGe, etc) might not be actually due to real (or "ordinary") radiation.

Bottom line: commercialization seems far away. Basic research work needs to be done to understand what is going on.

Rob Woudenberg

I suspect that SÓ and SZG are not entirely convinced of the "ultra-dense" interpretation either, but they do still think that excited hydrogen clusters—Rydberg matter—are involved with the observed effects.

Personally, I would try to investigate whether hydrogen is needed at all, because while the laser-induced signal obtained without admitting hydrogen is indeed lower, it is not orders of magnitude lower than with it (as shown in in figures 3 and 7 here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hedp.2021.100942 ; look for peak voltages and signal shapes).

It might be that hydrogen just has a secondary albeit still important role, e.g. cleaning the surface. This could be consistent with the observation that the best laser-induced results are those obtained with noble metals (Pt, Ir, etc), which do not form oxides. I think the 'spontaneous' signal still needs hydrogen, though.

Ahlfors

That has been already suggested, but there aren't many people who are both capable of building such detector (or have the budget to) and also willing to check it out. There also are possible issues preventing detection as explained below, but suitable simplified "open" reactors could be easily made.

Paper: Production of ultra-dense hydrogen H(0): A novel nuclear fuel

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Industrial catalysis aspects

It is expected that catalysts used in many existing large-scale industrial processes form H(0), but that these species has remained unobserved in these processes due to lack of suitable methods for its detection. One possibility could be to measure the muon emission [9] from the catalytic reactors, but it is not known to us if such experiments have been attempted. There are also several problems with such an approach: 1) most muon detectors are not selective and any energetic nuclear particle will give a similar detector response; however muon capture may give characteristic X-ray spectra from negative muons in suitable materials [89], 2) the negative muons will give nuclear reactions in many materials and to some extent even in hydrogen gas, thus few muons will be able to leave the catalytic reactor before they decay with a time constant of 2.20 μs [16].

There has to be at least a catalytic microreactor or two available for testing in most university departments of chemistry. Such verification could start there and tests with actual large-scale industrial reactors could be done at a later time if it's problematic to ask for testing permission in an industrial environment and if the smaller reactors do not yield useful results.

Holmlid's experiments have been typically made using one to several catalyst pellets under sub-optimal temperature conditions, though, so I think an ordinary microreactor should be able to work and show similar results.

Alan Smith

If I read the comment correctly, Ahlfors proposed checking for the same signal in operating industrial reactors using the described PMT detector, something that has been also proposed by Holmlid and his catalyst colleagues in the previously linked paper. I am saying that if checking industrial reactors isn't feasible in practice due to permits and so on, catalytic microreactors—which are often used for example to validate catalyst performance before large-scale use—could be checked instead.

EDIT: in other words, since such microreactors will be easily available in a University setting, it shouldn't be too difficult for Holmlid's coauthors to verify if the theory is true. Why this hasn't been done yet, that's the question.