Posts by Peter Ekstrom

Quote from Longview

It appears Ekstrom believes what he wants to believe. I will avoid the invitation to a pissing contest. Sorry to not provide a venue to substitute for "arrogant" abuse of students, employees and colleagues.

I have, over time, become allergic to poorly demonstrated claims of new nuclear effects. Piezonuclear reactions (I think someone mentioned that in this thread). See
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3501
for a demonstration that things can go wrong even with work published in reputable journals.

And what about the naked proton and it's importance for LENR or not? I'm intrigued....

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

Perhaps this shows a worthy example of the hobbled thinking that may be
pervasive among skeptic "physicists" with little knowledge of the real
world. Microwave sourcing of protons from hydrogen is a long developed
technology. Typical "how to" examples are seen in the AIP publication
Review of Scientific Instruments, for example:

...

Quote from Longview

I have no idea how "it" works. I have seen varied approaches of this sort
over the last few years of interest in LENR / CF.

From your arrogant besserwisser comment one gets the impression that you
knew what you were talking about. That is obviously not the case. Yes,
there are high frequency ion sources in many accelerators. They use a
strong varying electric field to ionize H and the positively charged
protons are extracted with a high voltage. But the issue was if one
could use a microwave oven. For heating your lunch it is fine, but I do
not think it is any good for making protons since the technique is
completely different using electrons and magnetic fields.

Quote from Longview

Perhaps you have permissions necessary to download the full text some such
article and can bring us up to speed.

Yes I have access to the Indiana ion source article and I have read it. But I cannot see why I should do your job!

Quote from Longview

"Naked" protons are an interesting field of inquiry, and they are exceedingly
reactive, so they are best generated in a rarefied atmosphere or in
vacuo. Fortunately, from an experimental standpoint, the evidence
accumulated over the last decades strongly suggests that protons per se
are not the direct actors in CF / LENR

In order to be able to have a meaningful discussion it is important that
we use an agreed and well defined nomenclature. What are "naked
protons"? A proton is a hydrogen atom with the electron removed, and it
can hardly be more "naked". And where is the evidence that protons
(naked or not) are not important in CF/LENR? They are very reactive but not important. That sounds strange to me.

Quote from Longview

Personally, as a native speaker, I find the appearance of "sceptic" to be some somewhat odd and suggests a pronunciation like "septic" (no offense
intended).

I believe offence was intended.

Quote from Longview

Perhaps this shows a worthy example of the hobbled thinking that may be pervasive among skeptic "physicists" with little knowledge of the real world. Microwave sourcing of protons from hydrogen is a long developed technology. Typical "how to" examples are seen in the AIP publication Review of Scientific Instruments, for example:

I find this answer offensive and arrogant! We all have different competences and no one of us knows everything. Maybe you could explain in a few sentences how it works?

And skeptic is spelled sceptic.

Quote from Alan Smith

Alan, it should not be difficult to have a repetitive unipolar high voltage pulse generator with 100 kHz rep rate. Up to 30-40 kV, a heavy duty automobile ignition coil with an electronic timer circuit can do the job. For 100 kV, there may be off the shelf pulse generators but I do not think 100 kV is required to form a dust plasma.

Could you elaborate how this I going to work. Is the high field supposed to accelerate charged particles like an accelerator?

Quote from Ecco

The main reason is likely because the lifetime of circular states compared to low-l Rydberg states is several orders of magnitude larger - allowing them enough time to condense to the so-called Rydberg Matter, which is long-lived.

While Rydberg states are well defined and established, Rydberg matter is not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…_research_is_questionable
"It is worth pointing out that most of the atomic physics community does not share the interpretations described in this article. That community does not find the "Rydberg matter hypothesis" compelling or plausible."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…lines_and_is_unscientific
The second paragraph was written by a person involved in Rydberg matter research, presumably the same person that wrote the original Wikipedia article.

I do not say that one should believe everything in Wikipedia (which is impossible since it is sometimes self-contradictory), but this comment in the Talk section and the fact that almost all references are to work by the same author, should at least make the warning bells ring.

Quote from GlowFish

If nickel powder is not necessary then perhaps you could electroplate the inside of your steel reactor with nickel (perhaps add the lithium then so that the resultant electroplate would be an alloy of nickel and lithium?).

How do you electroplate Li? I'm not very hot on chemistry, but I would think the Li would immediately be dissolved?

Quote from Wyttenbach

Is this meant from the classical nuclear physics point of view?

Or would You it also exclude under a LENR 'cluster-reaction' view point?

I do not believe in rewriting nuclear physics completely. As I said before, nuclear physicists are not idiots. As long as the LENR community invents another exception for each new problem, it will never make progress. Physics is not like that - Physics is beautiful and simple!

Quote from magicsound

Forgive me if I sounded defensive to you. I am an experimentalist and thus have become used to supporting my data against critical analysis (especially in fora such as this one).

Thank you for your calculation of expected alpha energy yields and counts for the P+7Li reactions. I can only say that our recent experiment with three separate gamma spectrometers in place showed no evidence to support these reaction paths. We have not yet finished analysis of the saved spectra, and subtraction of background may still show a signal from the alpha excitation of Ni.

OK, no problem. I am also experimentalist and quite experienced in nuclear measurements.

I think, however, that one can safely exclude a reaction with Li. The reason I started looking into the Li reactions was that Cook and Rossi (Cook with the cookbook) say in their paper that the Li reaction is involved and that it is "gamma free". The disappearing ⁷Li supports the reaction, but it is by no means gamma free.

Quote from randombit0

YOU have not understood nothing and maybe that you are NOT able to see the photographs !

Triple negations in one sentence! Must be a record!

Quote from magicsound

My analysis was based on the plots on page 3 of Stelson, showing the
counts per micro Coulomb of beam current. The count data for Ni isotopes
are almost four orders of magnitude lower than for Se (which is not
present in the reactor).

In the Glowstick experiments to date, we are seeing net power (if any)
of less than 100 watts. My conclusion was meant to show that in the
Glowstick experiments, this reaction signal would not have been
measurable. If we're able to generate even 1 kW in a Glowstick, such a
signal would be possible to detect, and we'll watch for it. In such an
event, there would be lots of other signals as well, and possibly a
melt-down of reactor components.

Display More

There is not a factor 10⁴ between ⁵⁸Ni and Se, more like a factor of
20. But let's forget about Se, I don't know why that got into the
discussion.

I find your comments defensive and negative. If p+⁷Li is important in a
LENR reactor, measuring gammas would be the ultimate proof that there is
a reaction and the gamma yield would give a handle on the excess
energy. That would convince even the hardcore nuclear physicists that
you have got something! It would definitely be a good signal. Even a
negative result would be of interest since it would give a rather
stringent upper limit of the p+⁷Li contribution.

We may be willing to measure a alpha+Ni gamma spectrum at our accelerator with
the 2011 Rossi fuel samples (thick target yields, as in Stelson).

Lets calculate an estimate of the count rate of the 1454.2 keV
⁵⁸Ni(2⁺->0⁺) transition. (You can renormalise the final result if you
prefer other assumptions.)

Reaction: p+⁷Li-->2 alpha Q=17.347 MeV.

Alpha energy = 17.347/2=8.67 MeV (all excess energy goes into kinetic energy of the alphas).

Excess energy from the reaction above: 100 W.

Number of alphas per second: 100/(8.67*10⁶*1.6*10^-19)=100*10¹³/(8.67*1.6)=7.2*10¹³ /s.

Equivalent current: I=N*q*e=7.2*10¹³*2*1.6*10^-19*10⁶=23 microA

So we have 23 microC per second.

The yield of ⁵⁸Ni was 9.38*10⁴ (Stelson, table 1, 7% uncertainty, E=8.013 MeV, close to alpha energy above).

Correcting for natural abundance of ⁵⁸Ni: (0.68/0.996)*9.38*10⁴= 64000.

Total activity (only ⁵⁸Ni) is 23*64000=15*10⁵ /s=15*10⁵/(3.7*10⁴)=40 microCi,
which is much more than a standard source (1 microCi). There is
obviously reason to take safety precautions.

A conservative photo peak efficiency of 1% would yield 15000 counts/s. That is probably more than the detector can handle!

I realize that this is, if I have the sums right, as popular as the proposal to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet!

Quote from scuromio

It is usually not a good idea to put socially controversial subjects into a technical forum. I have done so anyway, because it plausibly could have been an example of LENR.

I'm sorry but I think it is sick! I think the admin should remove the thread.

The article is 2 1/2 years old and hardly serious:

Quote from AlainCo

There is still some debate as to whether practical cold fusion is feasible, given the conditions required to result in a net gain of energy. One restriction is the amount of pressure required to force atoms to fuse. This has proven to be a tricky hurdle for scientists, but it should be easy for British Gas. If an executive is placed in the middle of a reactor, given a lump of solid hydrogen to hold, then told it is the last thing of value owned by an impoverished pensioner, it should trigger a grasping reflex so powerful that the hydrogen atoms are forced together and a fusion reaction initiated. Once initiated, it should be sustainable.

Quote from Eric <br>Walker

What we have now is experiment, telling us that we haven't figured out how to change the electron density under controlled conditions yet. On this we agree. Our disagreement lies in whether this is something that lies in the realm of possibility. You're conjecture is that the way is closed; mine is that we're already seeing it at work in LENR. Both positions are based on conjecture.

No, the classic nuclear physics conjecture is also a very thorough
theoretical understanding of the nucleus. Do you believe all nuclear
physicists since Rutherford are idiots? Yes, some nuclear physics
knowledge may have to be modified, but then we need better data on
the deviations. The LENR community tries to explain dubious excess
energy results by abandoning

* The integrity of the Coulomb barrier
* That excited nuclear states decay by gamma-emission
* That nuclear reactions create radioactive nuclei
* That the half-life in nuclear decay can be changed at will

This is very well established scientific fundamental knowledge and we
need very strong data to change it. The LENR community needs to adhere
to the scientific method (e.g. accepting criticism without sulking) and
modern measurement techniques (forget GM-counters and cloud chambers).
Without this LENR will continue to be a fringe science or, worse, become
a pseudo-science.

Added:
The magic to fix the problems above is a catalyst. This is very well established and understood in chemistry involving the electrons of a chemical reaction. It is, however, very difficult to se how a chemical catalyst can influence the nucleus with a size five orders of magnitude smaller (0.1 nm, 1 fm) than an atom and involving six orders of magnitude higher energies (eV, MeV). Quantum mechanical effects cause limitations for very small systems. Or should quantum mechanics be added to the list above? Also, in order to build up the energy needed we also need to abandon the second law of thermodynamics. Not much left of physics then!

Quote from magicsound

Thank you for the links above. I started at the Stelson & McGowan paper, because Ni is the predominant element in the fuel. From first reading, I think a Coulomb excitation signal would be very difficult to detect. The characteristic gamma peaks for the even-numbered Ni isotopes are shown as only ~10 gammas per micro Coulomb of beam current (3.12 × 10^12 particles) for alphas with energy ~4 MeV. That is measured with a 7.5 cm NaI crystal a at 5 cm from the target.

We don't know the rate of a reaction that might be producing energetic alphas, but the energy yields of the candidates you proposed could be calculated. I suspect that a yield of 10^12 reactions per second would be easily measurable as heat. But at lower reaction rates, say 10^12 per minute, the gamma signal would likely be below background, even with 10 cm of lead around a NaI detector, at 18 cm from the hot reactor.

To make the measurement even more problematic, the peak for 58Ni (68% natural abundance) is shown as 1460 KeV. It is thus indistinguishable from the Potassium-40 line that's pervasive in the environment.

Your calculation must be wrong. 10 kW (reasonable for a LENR reactor) and the p+Li reaction yields an equivalent alpha particle current of 2 milliA. Stelson does not specify the current but it is from the type of accelerator certainly less than 10 microA. In order not to evaporate the target the current was probably less. For the Se target the current was 0.01 microA, but the authors still get a very nice spectrum (Fig 12).

The 1460 from 40K is no problem. It is simple background suppression and background measurement.

Quote from Longview

I assume Robert Bryant is referring to the structure and function of a nuclear weapon. Chain reaction of rapidly increasing neutron flux triggers an immense reduction in "half-life", essentially from 7.04 X 10^8 years to perhaps something close to a microsecond. But, from previous comments I suspect Peter Eckstrom does not like to identify that process as "half-life reduction" at least not in this context. I could be mistaken.

It has nothing to do with what I want. There are well defined phenomena in nuclear physics, and it is up to the nuclear physics community to define them. Using the wrong term only creates confusion and makes communication impossible. Spontaneous decay is as one (radioactive decay), nuclear reactions another. The process in a nuclear bomb is neutron induced fission which is not spontaneous and is defined as a nuclear reaction.

Wikipedia:
"Radioactive decay, also known as nuclear decay or radioactivity, is the process by which the nucleus of an unstable atom loses energy by emitting radiation, including alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays and conversion electrons. A material that spontaneously emits such radiation is considered radioactive."

"In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is semantically considered to be the process in which two nuclei, or else a nucleus of an atom and a subatomic particle (such as a proton, neutron, or high energy electron) from outside the atom, collide to produce one or more nuclides that are different from the nuclide(s) that began the process. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation of at least one nuclide to another."

Quote from me356

Peter Ekstrom: Mostly all detectors are limited with around 2-5 MeV, including scintillators. This is reason why we might not see it and reason for word "measurable".

I do not see why a scintillator cannot detect higher energies. You just turn the amplification down. And an environment with neutrons flying all over will create lots of different gammas.

Quote from robert bryant

We know that U-235 with a halflife of 704 million years(measured under a limited set of conditions) can disappear in a flash given different conditions

Do we? I don't. Please give a reference!

Quote from Eric Walker

There are studies that have looked at the effects of the chemical environment on inducing reactions, i.e., by increasing the pressure, or by heating up the material, and so on. As you mention, the conclusion is that such variables have only a very small effect. Are we to assume that the studies have been comprehensive and have looked at every possible scenario that might be used to move that slider? Shall we do so in the face of suggestive evidence to the contrary?

Yes, it's a dead end. You can only marginally change the half-life of spontaneous decay. And only electron capture (not alpha, beta-, gamma) by changing the probability that there is an electron in the nucleus. These electrons will mostly be inner shell s (l=0) electrons, and you do not change these much by chemical means. Of course, if you strip the atom of all its electrons and beta+ is not energetically allowed the nucleus becomes stable.

Here is Wikipedia's take on the subject:
"Chemical bonds can also affect the rate of electron capture to a small degree (in general, less than 1%) depending on the proximity of electrons to the nucleus. For example, in ⁷Be, a difference of 0.9% has been observed between half-lives in metallic and insulating environments.[8][/sup] This relatively large effect is due to the fact that beryllium is a small atom whose valence electrons are close to the nucleus."

Quote from Eric Walker

Chemical effects in grounded targets under equilibrium conditions? Or chemical effects under all circumstances, including under non-equilibrium conditions, when there is a buildup of static charge on the target, current running through it, the application of a strong magnetic field, etc.? I.e., are the experimental conditions you're familiar with general and transferable to LENR experiments?

I don't understand what you mean, but there is maybe a misunderstanding. I am talking about spontaneous decay, and that has a very specific finger print and half-life. If you disturb a nucleus hard enough, you will get nuclear reactions and you will get new products. But that is not decay which you can associate with a half-life.

Quote from me356

The latest experiment generated high neutron flux while no measurable gamma.

How do you get a neutron flux without gammas? Let them out through the window?

Quote from me356

Although I have measured neutrons for a few times when reactor was turned off (for period of days) after such period reactors are always clean and nothing seems to be activated.
But a lot of investigation is needed.

Yes, indeed. In all neutron captures you get high energy (several MeV) primary gammas. In many cases the resulting nuclide is unstable and will decay after a short or long time.

Quote from Eric Walker

As an aside, I'm curious if your understanding is that there is only a single channel for the relaxation of Coulomb excitation. What if something analogous to internal conversion were the norm and happening much more often than previously thought, and gammas are just a rare channel that is easy to detect?

Quote from Eric Walker

More serious question: have you read any specific studies that failed to change half-lives, or are you passing along a generalization you've encountered in the course of your career?

Yes. The established cases are very small chemical effects for electron capture. I have read 1000s of papers when I evaluated nuclear data for Nuclear Data Sheets.
*
The point of shortening half-life: yes the activity increases but if the half-life is short one can keep it under control.
*
For first excited 2+ states you do not need to worry about internal conversion. Besides it is calculable to a few % since the matrix elements (the tricky structure bit) cancel. Internal conversion occurs for high multipolarity and low energy and it is very well understood.