Franco,
Yes - in a short post about a complicated subject, it is hard to cover all the bases. I think Kim is incorrect on some of the details, but his take on it is intriguing. It is certainly possible that we should be talking about multiples of 2 bound protons, instead of only 2 - or alternatively, many molecules of already densified hydrogen - denoted here as IRH or f/H since Mills has trademarked his designation for fractional hydrogen. f/H is a composite boson as well. Note that a Casimir cavity is far more spacious than the interstices or a metal matrix of a proton conductor. The proton conductor can "feed" a Casimir cavity, or it can operate as the conduit between cavities. Those cavities, at the most active diameter of 2 nm, can accommodate many dozens of pairs of f/H. This hierarchy of spatial structure within an active metal complicates things - so as of now - everyone is talking in generalities to some degree. From: Franco Talari Jones, I don't understand how you can call 2 protons (which combine to form a bosonic quasiparticle) a 'condensate' (transient or otherwise) since protons are Fermions and only 1 quasiparticle boson is formed from 2 protons. A single boson (pair of protons) is not a condensate. In Kim's theory of Ni-H LENR, he assumes that 2 protons can combine above the Curie temperature (when the "internal" magnetic field is weak) to form a spin zero bosonic quasiparticle and that a quasi BEC condensate can then be formed due to overlap between bosonic Ni nuclei with even nucleon number and bosonic quasiparticles (pairs of protons) with spin zero. I don't think he explains what the attractive interaction is that causes the protons to "pair-up", but with many such pairs one could imagine a condensate forming. Franco All in all, this Zhao paper reinforces the strategy of JoJo and/or anyone else who may be considering it - to work with hydrogen and CNT. I hope that a number of experimenters can get hold of adequate material to try, and will report results, even if negative. If you want to tie this paper into a particular Ni-H theory - there is the nanomagnetism concept of Ahern. That theory is a work in progress, but it fits right into the picture of high-temperature local superconductivity for sustaining near-fields and thereby reducing randomness, in order to arguably form a 'transient condensate.' As to why magnetism would be important - very simply this gets back to another form of structural uniformity, and to boson statistics. Two bound protons in a Casimir cavity represent the bare minimum composite boson, but already at identical 'compreture' due to the cavity containment. Magnetism aligns spin, so immediately you have a near-condensate in the sense of extreme DFR ("Divergence From Randomness") in the physical properties of those atoms. Even if - from this highly structured but non-cryogenic state forward - a "virtual BEC" can lasts only a picosecond due to thermal irregularities - all the better . since on decay of the transient condensate - there will be an expected huge acceleration gradient, courtesy of Coulomb repulsion. A transient or virtual BEC may actually be preferred over the ultracold variety. Jones