I am not sure what life time limits are placed upon isomers. In this case I feel that a process which keeps energy stored in an excited nucleus for enough time to allow it to drain off instead of blowing the atom apart is special. My understanding is that most of these nuclear processes are reversible and that the only way to prevent the reverse action is to emit some of the energy so that too little remains for it to occur. Obviously the emission of a proton or neutron carries away a great deal of energy. A gamma can do it as well but I recall this takes much more time and may come too late to save the nucleus.
Our best hope for LENR would be some form of rapid coupling to other bodies in the nearby region unless a reaction similar to the type hypothesized by Ed allows the energy to escape harmlessly. I need a better understanding of how quickly and effectively energy can be absorbed by "friends" nearby. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Eric Walker <eric.wal...@gmail.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sat, Jun 22, 2013 10:49 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Rossi and DGT Similarity? On Sat, Jun 22, 2013 at 7:33 PM, David Roberson <dlrober...@aol.com> wrote: Eric, you seem to be suggesting some form of isomer of He4. I suppose if that is possible, then it would allow the energy a temporary storage location before it becomes released. Is there any evidence that this happens? None on my part. I'll have to defer to more knowledgeable folks on this question, although it's a handy conceptual device for making sense of the different d+d branches. I know that in other nuclear reactions there are some branches that lead to metastable isomers that then go on to decay further, often emitting a gamma ray, although I don't know that that is what is happening in this instance. Since the proposed two-deuteron resonance is so unstable that it lasts for a very small amount of time, calling it an isomer might be a misnomer. Eric
