Fran, I think it's hard to determine exactly where nuclear effects occur in arcs - assuming the experiments are conducted and reported correctly.
As time permits, I am trying to calculate how much energy an electron in a plasma can borrow from its surrounding current using some neglected physics tools - the magnetic vector potential and/or the Darwin Hamiltonian. I believe that the energy an impacting 5-eV arc electron can deliver in a collision is far higher than 5-eV - i.e., calculate the cross-terms for (generalized) kinetic energy in the Darwin Hamiltonian. This is analogous to the example Brian Josephson uses in his video where the tip of a pin borrows energy from the body of the pin to puncture paper. Possibly also, when are current rapidly changes, an inner K-shell electron of an atom in a metal-vapor arc can sometimes acquiring enough energy to enter the nucleus (causing electron-capture transmutation - endothermic). Just speculating. -- Lou Pagnucco Roarty, Francis X wrote: > Lou, > NICE CITATION! Funny how radioactive decay keeps coming up with respect to > nano particles and excited gas atoms. Yes I would posit decay acceleration > in arcs with tungsten electrodes used for atomic welding but granted the > electrodes are probably also acting as a catalyst and the decay may be > confined to the electrode surface. > Fran > [...]
