On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 4:46 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote:
Is it the momentum that is shared with a spectator nucleus or the excess
> energy that wants to cause the He4 to break up?
>
I think it's considered something different than 4He -- I've heard the
intermediate product called a "two-deuteron resonance." In my mind I
imagine two deuterons spinning rapidly around one another, like a binary
star system, but much closer, I suppose, so that they appear to be a single
thing, but highly unstable.
d+d → [2d]*
[2d]* → 4He+ɣ (in free space)
So there's really two "decays" here -- first to [2d]* and then to the final
products. This is just the image in my head; I have no idea what the
resonance actually looks or behaves like. I suppose it is like a highly
energetic 4He, with 24 MeV that it wants to shed as quickly as possible.
It is this that decays to 4He+ɣ, p+t or n+3He. Once a dried out 4He
forms, it is a very stable entity. So much so that you can imagine
it barreling like a bullet into a nearby lattice atom and causing an
increase of four nucleons as it is absorbed rather than being broken up.
> We have been seeking a process that is able to extract the relatively
> large energy of the excited helium nucleus in a slower than normal manner.
> I suppose that I refer to normal as being what is seen in high energy
> physics as compared to LENR.
>
I think Ron Maimon's model is at variance with the "slow release" family of
models that have been discussed here. His involves a quick release of all
of the energy in the reaction in the form of energetic particles. But this
is balanced by the fact that it does not necessarily happen all the time;
they would need to be discrete occurrences that happen occasionally (like
popcorn before it really starts popping).
Eric
