Bob, Good point, and we did discuss some of this before. However, there are two differences which could be important. Not sure if they came up earlier.
Deuterium is a nuclear boson. We do not need to invoke BEC at all for tunneling of one nuclear boson into another nuclear boson. Therefore the BEC state at elevated temps is NOT relevant for tunneling of bosons, we do not need it. That is a big plus. However, the BEC could be important for the other complex theories which try to avoid the 24 MeV gamma by suggesting that 4 deuterons fuse to 2 alphas (Takahashi). Anyway, let’s move on to protium. The highly shrunken neutral hydrogen atom would be a composite boson, which is not exactly a nuclear boson - in the sense that two half spins would including the electron make the species bosonic. However, for nuclear tunneling of one proton into another proton where we need the bosonic statistics at the nuclear level – Pauli exclusion would still apply, and thus tunneling is forbidden. However, it is an open question whether two DDL can form a BEC and do an end-run to avoid Pauli that way. Personally, I doubt that it can happen at high temperature. The second problem is that dropping all the way from ground state to DDL does not really release all that much energy, in advance. There is still MeV levels to dispose of after the fusion. So the mitigation of the gamma is not really accomplished by the Mills method. For those reasons, it seems to me that fusion can be justified as an explanation for bosons (deuterons); but as to whether the DDL, as a composite boson, would still qualify for nuclear tunneling, that is doubtful – and anyway, Ed has already invoked P-e-P - which is incompatible with the near field of the DDL. From: Bob Higgins Jones, You are positing that Ni-H fusion must be something completely different than a Pd-D fusion due to the fact that a hydrogen nucleus (proton) is a fermion and a deuterium nucleus (proton + neutron) is a boson. Integer spin particles, Bosons, are not subject to the Pauli exclusion principle and have a far easier time fusing in condensed matter, at high probability due to tunneling - especially since they have inherent coulomb screening from the neutron. Deuterons are Bosons. And even if Ed does not like tunneling, it is the only reason that his theory has a leg to stand on. LENR in the hydroton scenario is possible with Bosons and impossible with Fermions. It is as simple as that. That could be at least partly true and I would like to ask for some discussion. Isn't a neutral hydrogen atom (proton + electron) a boson? We have discussed on Vortex the concept that the energy from the hydrogen isotope must be released before fusion can occur (Ed's proposal). This is necessary to prevent (in advance) the high energy photon released after the LENR fusion occurs. If we do not reject summarily the Mills concept of inverse Rydberg states for the hydrogen atom (even if it turns out he doesn't have it quite right), then the advance energy being taken out of the atoms to be fused could be taken out by successive reduction in orbital size during the resonance process, with corresponding emitted lower energy photons. The result of resonance could be highly shrunken neutral hydrogen atoms which are still bosons. Ejected shrunken hydrogen would likely pass through most materials like a neutron, but if captured, could cause a fusion-fission in outside materials (activating them) - this could be the unusual radiation that Ed Storms documented. You could be right that bosons will fuse easier, but that doesn't rule out hydrogen - but may instead point to the possibility that the shrunken inverse Rydberg states may exist in some form for hydrogen. If such states exist, then something like the hydroton would be an excellent way to move hydrogen in and out of those states because the close resonant coupling of the structure provides a strong evanescent coupling to the atom; evanescent coupling purported to be required for that transition by Mills. Your observation that the deuterium nucleus is a boson already means that the neutral atom is not. Here is a complete guess - maybe deuterium cannot enter a shrunken fractional Rydberg state because its neutral atom is not a boson. Deuterium could be a catalyst then in the hydroton, allowing the resonance and hydroton to continue shrinking the hydrogen while not itself shrinking. I would like to hear your comments. Bob Higgins
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