Beyond the LENR implications of laser irradiation in LENR: Letts, Hagelstein, Cravens et al. (or maybe this is something which even they have not fully realized) ....
There is putative "excess energy" coming from some reports of "metallic hydrogen" or so-called "Rydberg matter", and these reports themselves have alternative interpretations. Wiki has an entry now, which wasn't there when parts of the message below was originally posted 3 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen Anyway - the paper is from J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 7017-7023 (2004) This purports to be an experimental observation of an atomic hydrogen material with H–H bond distance of 150 pm "suggesting metallic hydrogen" according to Badiei and Holmlid of Göteborg University, Sweden. Abstract - with (alternative) commentary. A phase of hydrogen called Rydberg matter (RM) is formed in ultra-high vacuum by desorption of hydrogen from an alkali. [Note that the effect may depend on an alkali only, and there is a further implication that the hydrogen is being 'held' at an inner orbital.] The RM atoms are released upon simple irradiation with a surprising amount of energy - 9.4 eV, which is over double the IP (ionization potential) of the alkali in which had been immobilized, and after deducting the energy of the laser photons which released them there appears to be a net gain of around 3.4 eV per atom. This paper should have raised more eyebrows in the ranks of alternative energy folks. This is a massive gain which should be able to be converted into electrical energy. Teaser: One of the most important things about this report is the value: 3.4 eV per atom. The authors of this experiment, IMHO went looking for evidence of metallic H, exlusively and did not consider "redundant ground states" tight Bohr orbitals or the hydrino by any other name, and consequently they believe from the results that this energy is evidence of the bond energy of a metallic phase of atomic hydrogen. This was primarily because of the results by Chau et al (2003 Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 245501) and the fact that most in the fizzix mainstream refuse to inform themselves of other possibilities They could be correct, of course, but this result also can be reinterpreted in alternative ways if one accepts "redundant ground states". As for how to go to the next step: Much of the reported excess energy related "bare protons" (or for that matter, "bare deuterons" in the interfacial layer of a CF electrode) could be related to the simple presence of the proton charge being able to attract an opposite charge from Dirac's sea of negative energy, specifically from "virtual Ps or virtual positronium". Virtual Ps has a lifetime - which is fleeting in our 3-space and it does not "have time" to annihilate, BUT before fading into the reciprocal space which is Dirac's sea, it does have time enough to become disrupted and to leave behind half or all of its binding energy of 6.8 eV, which is likely to be in the form of light-lepton pairs of net mass/energy of 6.8 eV. or 3.4V each, in my view. This would be evidenced by UV emission. Anytime one sees "peaks" in the spectroscopy of hydrogen plasmas at these two levels, 6.8 or 3.4 eV and particularly the lower one, this could possibly be indicative of an energy "extraction" from Dirac's sea, at least in this hypothesis. It should be noted that this explanation is also effectively indistinguishable from saying that the excess energy comes from "ZPE" except that here it is quantized, so it can be traced to a source. The possibility that a "bare proton" created in our 3-space is somehow able to attract virtual particles in quanta of 3.4 eV (and multiples) directly from Dirac's sea, resulting in excess energy, is fascinating. But why has no one taken this finding further? Unless of course -- Letts, Hagelstein, & Cravens have done so inadvertently.... Jones
