No ... its not another Paris Hilton undressing this time.
But sometimes there is a hidden message in real stars ... waiting there
for us mortals to try to discern.
As stars age and convert the bulk of their hydrogen into helium - a
"Helium flash" is poised to occur - this is the sudden ignition of much
of the helium (alpha particles) in older intermediate mass stars. It is
not-quite a "nova".
The explosive nature of the helium ignition arises from the reaction
taking place in so-called 'degenerate matter.' Degeneracy pressure is a
function of increasing core density, which is brought-on by the gradual
accumulation of denser nuclei than hydrogen, and this feature can
suddenly come to dominate thermal-pressure or 'compreture' (product of
density and temperature)- which is the Boyles law relationship: PV = k.
Once the stellar compreture reaches a threshold and the gas is no longer
close to 'ideal' then helium fusion can begin but in a more demanding PV
regime. At this stage, the temperature rapidly increases which further
increases the helium fusion rate and expands the reaction region, but
the pressure does not increase (because of degeneracy), so there is no
stabilizing (cooling) expansion of the core. This creates a runaway
reaction, and in a 'nova' - the energy output quickly climbs to ~100
billion times the star's normal energy production (for a few seconds)
until the increased temperature and lost mass again renders thermal
pressure dominant, eliminating the degeneracy.
There could be a direct corollary here with LENR (of the loaded metal
matrix variety) -- in that the matrix effective pressure is independent
of temperature, up until fusion occurs. Is that a hidden message?
Maybe, and at the end of this, I will suggest one practical
interpretation of it.
Anyway, all of this is a preamble for further 16O/18O ratio rambling
speculation, due to the coincidental release of a new astrophysics paper.
Title: "Very Large Excesses of 18O in Hydrogen-Deficient Carbon and R
Coronae Borealis Stars" Author: Clayton, G C et al.
Abstract: The authors have found that seven hydrogen-deficient carbon
(HdC) stars, which have 16O/18O ratios close to and in some cases less
than unity, values that are orders of magnitude lower than measured in
other stars (the Solar value is 500).
The authors are not proposing the exact mechanism involved for the 18O,
which I suspect is a similar mechanism to one which may be employed for
energy production on earth:
C + He(alpha) + 1MeV --> 18O
In the case of intermediate mass stars, the helium flash may be the
formative precursor of the 18O anomaly, since the star already has lots
of carbon and plenty of 1MeV gammas.
Finally, to cut to the chase. How could anything like this kind of
degeneracy occur in the confines of a LENR laboratory?
Simple, Watson... so long as one secures a supply of so-called
Bucky-balls (C-60).
Turns out, the C60 Fullerene can encapsulate a helium molecule - which
unfortunately is the same a helium atom, so it is not confined and can
easily escape the carbon cage - at STP.
However, at very low temperature, strange things begin to happen with
helium as it approaches the BEC state... there is reason to believe that
before those extreme conditions are reached, in a solution of liquid
helium fully loaded and pressurized with C60 - that condition may be
ripe for 'many' molecules to be contained within the very strong matrix
of the carbon cage- such that, with sudden irradiation (using a pulsed
beam from an accelerator) with photons at a resonance level, or perhaps
with electrons, this might result in a proportion of that target
undergoing fusion of carbon and helium to 18O.
Sounds preposterous without the stellar model to show us that this is an
expected situation with a surprisingly small resonance.
Talk about "Fire from Ice" carried to the nth degree - the extremes cold.
The downside is that the energy balance might not be (likely is not)
favorable- at least to the extent to make this concept work for a
marketable energy device - other than to prove that that an abnormal
amount of heavy-O's is the expected result of a star's undressing (via
the helium flash).
Jones
