At 07:44 AM 6/17/2011, Jouni Valkonen wrote:
Idea with this fusion is that in fusion two light nucleous merge. But there is no good evidence that this reaction is plausible in low energy (without muons).
That's a common opinion, but it's not true. See Storms, "Status of cold fusion (2010)," which covers extensively the heat/helium evidence. That is, there is confirmed evidence that the anomalous heat found with the Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect is correlated with helium production, and there is no contrary experimental evidence. From this, an operating default hypothesis should properly be that the FPHE involves deuterium fusion to form helium, but this conclusion is mechanism-independent.
However LENR does not exactly specify what does happen, but has more experimental approach.
Sure. But from the helium and the ratio found, it's quite likely to be deuterium -> helium, by whatever mechanism. The mechanism could involve neutrons, for example, but if the effect is to take deuterium and produce helium, then light nucleons have been merged.
That there are "two" is an assumption, there is sgood experimental evidence for multibody fusion under some conditions. If three or four or six nucleons merge, for example, all at once (or within a very narrow time span), this would still be properly called "fusion."
But in my opinnion Steven is perhaps wrong with the idea that LENR processes are neutron capture events.
Maybe. Maybe not. What I've claimed is that this "idea" hasn't been elaborated adequately to judge, and depends on more than one hypothesized process that has no direct experimental evidence behind it.
But anyway he is right that process should not be called as fusion because there is no solid theory that explains that fusion really occurs.
This comment *assumes* the conclusion. That is, if an electron produces, from deuterium, neutrons, and if these neutrons produce Helium (after a series of reactions) plus an electron, what's been done is to move deuterium into helium. Fusion. Valkonen is using "fusion" to refer to a specific process involving only two deuterons. I'm using it in what he calls an "experimental approach" where only the fuel and ash -- and released heat -- are observed.
Should we also call fusion reactions that are happenning at supernova explosions when heavy elements are formed rather as LENR? Or is the theory solid enough to exclude LENR?
It's pretty solid, on that level, I'd say. Those are extremely hot environments. Can we rule out LENR in nature? No, we can't absolutely rule out anything.
