On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:33 PM, Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> See: > > http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15876145 > > This is a 2011 article that discusses a proposal by Seth Putterman, a > professor well-known for investigating sonoluminescence. The proposal is > that in sonoluminescence, a plasma is created that is hundreds of times > more dense than plasmas found in nuclear fusion experiments. This proposal > has been mentioned in connection with a demonstration made by Andrea Sella > consisting of a glass tube filled with phosphoric acid and traces of > xenon. When the glass tube is gently shaken, a clinking sound occurs like > that of a ball bearing hitting the glass wall, along with visible blue > sparks. The temperature transients that are believed to occur in the glass > tube are up to 10,000 degrees, but they are nowhere near sufficient to > strip the electrons witnessed in the sonoluminescence. So there must be > something else going on as well in addition to temperature spikes. > > Putterman does not suggest fusion, but he does offer the dense plasma. I > think this suggestion is interesting in two ways. First, a very dense > plasma might be good for accelerating alpha and beta decay in already > unstable radionuclides. Second, several xenon isotopes have double-beta > decay modes. It would be interesting indeed to ultimately discover that > sonoluminescence is just accelerated beta decay, and that those blue sparks > are Cherenkov radiation. > > Eric > > Perhaps the energy of the collapsing bubble is channeled ( with the help of the dense plasma) into the isotope's nucleus converting it into an unstable isomer which triggers prompt beta decay. Harry
