On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:38 AM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:
> Axil, > > Please clarify something for me concerning BEC behavior. Are you > convinced that a BEC will always lead to fusion when it is formed? > ***No. A BEC is like a Crowd. Crowds form quite often. A fusion event is like a trampling of an individual member of that crowd. It only happens on rare occasions. > > Would a BEC produced at near absolute zero be expected to fuse? > ***If it had the right elements. Just like a crowd forming on an ice skating rink would have different elements of probability for trampling of an individual member than a crowd forming in a disco when someone yells "fire". > If not, what is the push required to make it happen? > ***The push for BECs to form fusion, i would think, is if the BEC is large enough such that its interstitial forces overwhelm the individual atom's force (namely, the Coulomb Barrier) and the crowd overwhelms the individual. That could happen as the larger the crowd forms within a confined space, the folks most likely to get trampled are on the innermost section where their freedom of movement is very restricted, rather than on the edges of the crowd where they can flee. Similarly, in a BEC the forces on those atoms overwhelms their freedom of movement and repulsion power and squeezing in too tight has huge consequences. > > I assume we are speaking of a BEC composed of Ds, but would these behave > differently than those made of Ps? > ***I would think so. The lattice represents the fence that keeps the crowd confined. A plastic fence isn't as strong as a wooden fence, which isn't as strong as a metal fence. So, with H1/Nickel, it's a plastic fence, and there are more fusion events (or crowd tramplings, if you will). With D2/Pd it's a wooden fence, so there's less fusion events but it's a bit more orderly and relatively easier to study. With H2/Nickel, it's a chain link fence and there are very few fusion events, to the point that people get bored even looking for them.
