Electron-assisted fusion

  • Imagine zero velocity situation: two protons and electron in the middle between them ( p ---- e ---- p ).
    The Coulomb force says that electron-proton attraction is four times stronger than proton-proton repulsion.
    So this simple 3 body system should collapse – down to fusion into deuteron.

    This trivial example suggests that electron could be very helpful in overcoming Coulomb barrier for LENR.
    What is wrong with this picture? That it requires” classical” trajectory of electron, while we are expected to consider the quantum picture: with electron smeared into a probability density cloud – making such electron assisted fusion practically improbable.

    So the main question here is: can we consider a trajectory of electron? For example averaging to the quantum probability distribution.
    There are many arguments that we can, for example equivalent dBB interpretation: that inserting psi = rho * exp(iS) to Schrodinger equation, we get continuity equation for the density (rho) and “classical” Hamilton-Jacobi equation for action S, with h-order correction/perturbation: of interaction with the pilot wave.
    Great intuition about this picture provides e.g. “classical-quantum” Couder experiments , getting for example interference: the corpuscle travels one paths, while its “pilot” wave travels multiple waves, influencing trajectory of the corpuscle (e.g.

    External Content www.youtube.com

    So imagine there is some (semi-classical) trajectory of electron’s corpuscle inside atoms, piloted by its wave, averaging to Schrodinger’s probability cloud.
    What trajectories should we expect? The first answer is Sommerfeld-Bohr’s elliptic trajectories. However, the ground hydrogen has zero angular momentum: we should degenerate the ellipse into a line: a free-fall trajectory.
    What is missing in Bohr-Sommerfeld is taking electron’s magnetic dipole moment into consideration – it is corrected in the free-fall atomic model of Gryzinski.
    This correction, classical spin-orbit interaction, has large influence on the free-falling trajectories.There appear also backscattering trajectories: when electron turns 180 degrees – allowing it to jump a few times between two nuclei, screening the Coulomb repulsion. And so Gryzinski has a note in Nature about cold fusion in 1989.

    Gryzinski's papers (~30 from Phys. Rev. type of journals, ~3000 total citations): https://scholar.google.pl/scholar?hl=en&q=gryzinski
    Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fall_atomic_model

    Slides about free-fall atomic model: https://www.dropbox.com/s/38xidhztpe9zxsr/freefall2.pdf
    Simple simulations in Mathematica: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/KeplerProblemWithClassicalSpinOrbitInteraction/

    What do you think about it?

    update: simulations of atoms with electron's magnetic dipoles taken into consideration (classical spin-orbit interaction):

    External Content www.youtube.com

    update: gentle introduction to Maximal Entropy Random Walk - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximal_Entropy_Random_Walk

    2017 paper about its connection with QM: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0910.2724v2.pdf

    showing why standard diffusion models are only approximation (of the Jaynes maximum uncertainty principle required by statistical physics models), and that doing diffusion right there is no longer disagreement with thermodynamical predictions of QM (Anderson localization):


    Update: Gryzinski's 1991 CF paper "Theory of electron catalyzed fusion in Pd lattice": https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.40688

    One (top)/two(bottom) electron trajectories for molecular bonds from his book, top-left is the one which could allow for fusion: with electron traveling between two nuclei, screening their Coulomb repulsion. In the paper above he writes that Pd lattice helps stabilizing such trajectories: 9136-pasted-from-clipboard-png

  • Thanks Jarek for the very interesting linkouts. [Too bad the last two are pdfs.]

    With respect to Couder (nice work!). It does appear in the video that the "corpuscles" are following some other force rather than even the pilot wave in the "interference" model. Perhaps the model is tilted? Anyway, this Couder video is quite instructive, particularly with respect to the concept of "guide waves" or "pilot waves" which in QM appear at least as fast as lightspeed. Couder's model is perhaps considerably more useful than the Schroedinger equation is itself (essentially insoluble, especially with d-orbitals on smaller elements where Hartree-Fock is not appropriate). As you know, a number of the orbital structures do take the electron(s) through the nucleus, others place the highest probability of materialization at the nucleus.

    The real problem may not be getting an electron to the nucleus (or the proton in this particular case), but having it in the right [universal hidden variable?] phase relationship to join up [remember "bonding" and "anti-bonding" molecular orbitals]. As far as we know only k-shell capture "inverse beta-decay" is showing anything promising there. And Hagelstein appeared recently in JCMNS to show us that energetics are not likely to be the cause of making up the missing classical QM mass for p+ + e- --> no + ve work.

    But if Schroedinger is too idealized and perhaps less instructive than Couder's silicone, then where do we turn?

    Perhaps we should all take it from Mitchell Swartz that John C. Slater is where its at? (Slater I recently discovered in my personal library, also wrote a comprehensive book on Microwave Electronics.... amazing.... and perhaps not a coincidence for a Rochester, Harvard then MIT polymath, but merely the separate or vaguely related products of a genius). I see Slater was also the graduate advisor for both Bill Shockley (co-inventor of the transistor at Bell labs) and Donald Merrifield (developer of automated peptide synthesis). Who knows how many did post docs or had collaborations in or through his labs. Perhaps big names of solid state physics and opto-electronics, such as Schalow, Townes, Maimon and Gould ??

    Or maybe we should pay more attention to the Lipinski's (Hubert the elder Lipinski, is a UCSD Ph.D. physicist, Stanford undergrad) very transparent WIPO patent application posted here a day or so back. Frankly, IMHO we should all be trying to replicate that as well and probably with more vigor than chasing the Rossi scheme. Everything is there in the Lipinski patent application. No BS, no gaming, they even tell you exactly how they developed their theory. In other online sources, they even show and tell the exact origin of their Jo, 0th order Bessel function and its historical sources. Every one of their dozens of experiments is apparently described in the WIPO application. Each major setup with dozens of variations, is described in exhaustive detail and diagrams, along with full tabulation of results of direct readouts and which then are abstracted to graphical representations for comparative analysis by us, the readers! They take admirable and great care to show exactly how their data were measured and recorded, down to the exact instrumentation brand and model, often with photos, and go on to give dates of calibration and servicing. The COPs there are (by the standard that is being used for Rossi reps) up to thousands. Until recently all their work was done in US National accelerator laboratories (Florida, Louisiana and Denton TX). Only recently have they completed acquisition of all the equipment to do everything in house near Palo Alto, CA. With that location, they should have little trouble attracting attention.... Elon Musk, are you paying attention?

    Now that we have these kind of results (UGC, Lipinskis) we might as well get down to perfecting the instrument we've seen (if we care to look?).

    Did Otto know how the internal combustion engine exactly worked-- and was that at 8 or 80 RPM? Did Watt or Newcomen understand everything (or even anything by today's standards) about thermodynamics?

    We're lucky not to be starting from zero.

    I appreciate very much that Jarek is steering our attention to these somewhat neglected alternative theories.... we all will need to select from them... it now appears sooner rather than later.

  • Hi Longview, thanks for the reply.
    The last link is definitely mathematica notebook, here are Gryzinski’s lectures: http://www.cyf.gov.pl/gryzinski/indang.html
    I have also his book, but it is in Polish. Sadly he has died in 2004. I plan to test his work when I will have more time.

    Regarding Couder, there are definitely essential differences comparing with the microscopic physics, like that his waves are rather short-range (pilot wave is long-range), or that he uses external clock, while particles seem to have internal one (zitterbewegung/de Broglie’s clock) – which can be now directly observed: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10701-008-9225-1
    However, he brings great intuitions about basic “quantum” phenomena:
    - interference pattern in double-slit experiment (particle goes a single trajectory, but it interacts with waves it created - going through all trajectories): http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v97/i15/e154101 ,
    - tunneling depending on practically random hidden parameters (highly complex state of the field): http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v102/i24/e240401 ,
    - orbit quatization condition (that particle has to 'find a resonance' with the field - after single orbit, its internal phase has to return to the initial state): http://www.pnas.org/content/107/41/17515 ,
    - Zeeman splitting analogue for these discrete orbits (Lorentz force was simulated by Coriolis force): http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v108/i26/e264503 .

    Regarding the “As you know, a number of the orbital structures do take the electron(s) through the nucleus, others place the highest probability of materialization at the nucleus.”, indeed we should be careful about blindly using the Schrodinger equation, for example because it neglects the interaction with the nucleus.
    Also, while thinking about multi-electron orbitals, we usually forget about electron-electron repulsion. If we do helium right, we see that position of these electrons are strongly anti-correlated.

    Anyway, returning to trajectories, if we add thermodynamics there: randomly perturb trajectories and average them over time, I believe we should get exactly the Schrodinger probability clouds.
    I have got to this conclusion, and generally to the search for physics below QM, thanks to working on Maximal Entropy Random Walk (my PhD thesis: http://www.fais.uj.edu.pl/docu…71-4eba-8a5a-d974256fd065 ).
    Specifically, the way we choose stochastic processes turns out not always being in agreement with the basic for statistical physics: the (Jaynes) maximal entropy principle. Doing it right - starting with maximizing entropy production: Maximal Entropy Random Walk, leads to getting exactly to the ground state probability density of Schrodinger equation.
    Here is a comparison of evolution of density of both approaches on a defected lattice (all nodes but the marked ones have self-loop):
    Standard random walk/diffusion would say that electrons on a defected lattice should have nearly uniform probability distribution, that semi-conductor should still conduct well - one of reasons for rejecting trajectories a few decades ago.
    MERW and QM say that electrons are localized (Anderson) as the quantum ground state probability density – trapped in (entropic) wells, can be difficult to conduct.
    Slides about MERW: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12405967/MERWsem.pdf

    Regarding “The real problem may not be getting an electron to the nucleus”, getting electron into proton costs m_n - m_p - m_e ~ 782keV – it is huge energy from chemistry point of view. I don’t believe some lattice excitations could make such process reasonably high probable.
    From the other side, think about this “ p ---- e ---- p ” symmetric configuration – without any additional energy, it should just collapse and fuse into deuteron.
    So maybe we shouldn’t think about two-body p+e->n collisions, but rather about three body p+e+p or nucleus+e+p processes – because electron can attract both nuclei.
    How to do it? Shooting electrons at nuclei, for some parameters we have backscatting: the electron goes back to the source. So imagine two closing nuclei and electron performing a few backscatterings between them: jumping between them, screening their Coulomb repulsion, making fusion much more probable.
    Gryzinski’s model suggests this is quite a reasonable scenario, and his classical scattering paper has more than 1000 citations (google “Classical Theory of Atomic Collisions”).

    Anyway, in contrast to other explanations of LENR, the only "exotic" assumption of electron-assisted fusion is considering trajectories of electrons.
    Other non-standard assumption is adding electron's magnetic dipole moment to Bohr-like considerations (classical spin-orbit interaction).

    ps. Another argument against Widom-Larsen like models (beside the need for huge 782keV energy for p+e->n), is production of gammas (and others) when this neutron would be finally absorbed by some nucleus - not observed in LENR.
    As in the "p - e - p" example, three body electron-assisted fusion should allow for direct crossing of the Coulomb barrier - without starting with going up the barrier (e.g. 782 keVs).

  • I was thinking about the issue that LENR is "clean" - produces nearly no high energy particles ... and I think I might have a solution(?)

    The direct way, e.g. p + e + p -> deuteron + 1.4MeV, looks much better than Widom-Larsen way: p + e + 782keV -> n, then n + p -> deuteron + 2.2MeV:
    - we don't have first to climb 782keV up (where this huge energy comes from?),
    - we don't have these additional 782keVs emitted while the proper fusion phase: n + p -> deuteron
    However, there would be still MeV-scale energy, which is needed to be radiated in "clean" way.

    So how to radiate MeV-scale excitation energy without high energy particles?

    Again, imagine this perfect symmetric "p ---- e ---- p" system, collapsing in symmetric way to deuteron.
    So this idealized situation would have cylindrical symmetry.
    Without any symmetry breaking mechanisms, the final excited state should radiate the exceeding energy also as cylindrically symmetric (EM) wave!
    Such a cylindrical wave, similar to wave from linear-antenna, would quickly loose energy density: proportionally to 1/R.
    This energy should be absorbed by surrounding particles as kinetic energy - just heating the medium.

    So the question is if gammas have to be localized?
    Maybe they can be e.g. cylindrical EM waves in some reactions instead - it would explain LENR being clean ...

    • Official Post

    I don't understand all, but I imagine Edmund Storms will share your interest. he propose pep fusion too

    what about the delocalisation of particle that Discrete Breather may cause as Dr Dubinko propose (at energy scale that seems insufficient maybe?). This mechanism of spontaneous concentration of energy and delocalisation allwing wavefunction overlap may allow pep fusion as propose Ed.
    If you read what Ed Storms ask to explain his theory, you may converge?

    PS: I'm just playing the old aunt to make theory dance together... don't ask me a serious opinion :huh: . I just know it finally works...

  • Fascinating prospect! And of course it appears that it would be consistent with the
    Lipinski experimental results without completely rewriting physics as they appear to propose.

    I did look over your dissertation up to
    page 30 so far. I learned long ago not to get "hung up" trying to
    completely or even partially understand maths and its notational
    vagaries, particularly on a first "skim" reading. Very fortunately you
    have plenty of visual and verbal cues, to fill in the gaps so I can
    build on my own visually based and very rudimentary and laboriously
    accumulated "modeling".

    Nevertheless your dissertation is very
    interesting reading not only from a physics, chemistry and electronic
    standpoint, but also for me as an "old guy, with earlier social
    "science" and a much more recent "real" science background, from a
    political and social perspective. But I won't dwell much on the reasons
    for the "flowering" of physics thought in the New eastern Europe. So not
    only do you present a view that for many Americans would I suspect be
    "fresh physics", and for many a series of challenges or delights
    depending on their age and length of time studying US style physics. But
    also for the many ideas that simply are not yet given much of a chance
    in the US, but which are apparently and thankfully are thriving
    elsewhere in the world outside of the US hegemony of overly
    "established" and weapons-oriented physics. But enough of that perhaps
    understandable but unfortunate-for-Americans (and I'm one) reality.

    Did I see the cylindrical wave idea in your dissertation or only in your post here? Regardless,
    let us take the proposal as analogous to an antenna (I like the idea!).
    According to one online calculator [please double check!] a gamma of one
    MeV energy would have wavelength in the range of little under a
    picometer (i.e. ~ 0.8 X 10e minus 12 M). So the "antenna" is actually
    more like an unshielded transmission line, and my modest experience with
    antennas and transmission lines suggests that indeed it would certainly
    radiate or vibrate strongly, as you suggest. It is quite analogous to
    trying to send 50 or 60 Hz over a 5000 km powerline.... the reactance is
    very wasteful even though the transmission line in that case is only a fraction
    of a 60 Hz vacuum wavelength (about 5,000 km, because in
    copper or aluminum, unshielded conduction speeds are considerably lower
    than in a vacuum, so the wavelength might be less than 1000 km in a 60 Hz
    powerline, as I dimly recall).

    So the old guys here can
    understand what you are saying is that a cylindrical shared orbital
    (such as a p-e-p structure may act as an antenna of at least the size of
    an atom and perhaps of some indefinite length, but certainly at least
    an angstrom in length (that is 10e minus 10 M) so any perturbation
    attempting to "transmit" along that path over one hundred wavelengths
    will be attenuated strongly if not completely? That seems plausible
    enough, but who am I to say?

    Putting on the critical hat for a
    second or two: But, perhaps too strongly dissipated? What is the
    e-folding rule for unshielded transmission lines with respect to
    wavelength? I forget... The counter point might be that the dissipation
    is immediate, the transmission length is no farther than a couple of
    atomic diameters, and thus the MeV photon is radiated immediately...
    perhaps not solving the problem.

    But countering my own point, an
    angstrom or two is one or two hundred of the one MeV wavelengths, so it
    would attenuate the sharp photo-electric (phonon of charge, that is the
    inverse of a longitudinalization of what might otherwise be a
    transverse photonic entity--- or put directly: a tranversalization
    (radiated lower energy photons-- IR, light, soft X-rays etc) of a
    longitudinally moving charge (the "antenna" made of anomalous
    cylindrical electron distribution in a special sub-molecular orbital).
    And hence, we could indeed expect very unusual behavior when phonon
    disturbances in electron cloud structures are made to act like
    unshielded transmission lines. The problem remaining is that much more
    data from chemistry and molecular physics should be assembled to secure
    the speculation... then the grant application and the "review" or theft
    by "haters" and so on and on.....

    But, I remain tentatively positive about this idea of Jarek's.

    Are there other analogous molecular "antennas" that behave in ways suggestive of this nascent model?

    Moving to the issue of MeV energies in an LENR context. I have never been too
    troubled by the dogma of "big physics" with respect to gamma energies
    supposedly being missing. They are part of what I call "collisional
    physics", this world of LENR and CF is not really the same thing, and if
    W-L-S were correct, not at all. For W-L-S an ultracold neutron can join
    whatever nucleus is energetically feasible or "whatever it wants"
    (according to them, if I understand correctly) and because of its
    extremely broad deBroglie lambda it essentially does so almost
    immediately at the nearest opportunity. I guess we are supposed to
    accept that the binding "energy" (Note: a single neutronic addition, say
    from proton to deuteron is large, I recall, but that is not what
    happens in the nickel hydrogen schemes) is peacefully given to the
    recipient nucleus and which then typically decays giving up that energy
    as a beta of some considerable, but easily shielded energy, over a
    usually relatively short decay life [see link below]. But I am not a
    W-L-S believer, at least not recently. But, I'm still looking for things
    that make sense, and I see that "collisional physicists" are often not
    really meeting W-L-S on its own terms, even though they know enough to
    claim to be trying.... We know from experience that
    adherents to an old paradigm typically cannot even hear or see
    the new (and of course the old simply die off eventually, rather than
    ever understanding the new).

    Your assumption that gammas come in
    Widom-Larsen (Srivastava) is interesting. If the recipient of the
    neutrons is fairly high on the "curve of binding energy" then the
    incremental "fusion" energy released is quite small, the curve flattens
    up there. You only see huge energies of fusion at the lighter weight
    elements (Lithium is at least near the "knee" of the binding curve to be

    I put out a table here some while back of the various expected
    beta decay half lives from the addition of neutrons to every likely
    element in the Parkhomov / Lugano/ Rossi etc. reactor. There were few if
    any gammas seen there, a couple of internal capture-generated gammas
    from beta pluses among the many beta minuses, might give rise to a very
    few weak annihilation gammas in pairs at 511 keV. Nearly everything was
    easily attenuated betas, most of substantial, but easily shielded,

    Brian Albiston - Parkhomov replication

    The Lipinskis skate around the whole radiation issue nicely with
    the formation of a Beryllium isotope (Be 7 or 8 from either or both Li 6
    and/or Li 7 that each accept a proton of modest energy, and the more abundant
    resulting Be 8 isotope is extremely short lived transferring all of its
    energy by nearly symmetrical fission to He nuclei (alphas) of MeV energy
    that are very easily shielded and have extremely high LET, delivering
    the energy to the reactor's stainless steel walls and forming no
    measurable radio-isotopic products there, simply giving up their MeV as
    heat in the steel, perhaps on several bounces until finally becoming a
    tiny residue of helium gas (mixtures of He 3 and He 4 depending on the
    Li + p isotopic paths). They measure these alphas as radiation within
    the chamber and then see them as helium gas (both stable isotopes) in
    their commercial Residual Gas Analyser (RGA).

    (I see a modest incongruity, according to the "never to be trusted..." online
    encyclopedia, only Be 8 splits to He 4, untrusted-pedia has Be 7 decaying
    with a T1/2 of 50 odd days by internal electron capture to Li 7.... I will
    pursue this and the Lipinski's discussion further. However their story would
    be largely unaffected by the behavior of Li 6 on proton addition.)

  • Hi AlainCo, thanks for the replies. Let me know if I can explain anything.
    I have briefly looked at the breathers of dr Dubinko.
    Generally particles are localized configurations of fields (among others, charge is singularity of EM field), and have an internal (de Broglie) clock/zittebewegung – so formally we can call particles as breathers.
    In contrast, dr Dubinko uses effective breathers of atomic lattice – I can see a possibility for sine-Gordon like breathers there (magnetic field for potential), but I don’t see how it could explain fusion?
    I don’t believe it could reach 782keVs for e+p->n. He uses the Heisenberg ignorance principle in explanation – magical/quantum curtain which is supposed to explain everything. If we want to really understand fusion, we need to raise this curtain and ask what’s actually happening there – for trajectories, also of the supporting actor: electron.
    Regarding the Ed Storms paper, I have read “Mechanism to overcome the Coulomb Barrier” and “Mechanism to dissipate excess mass-energy” sections and don’t see any explanation.

    Hi Longview,
    Regarding releasing the MeV-scale energy as cylindrical wave, I don't think orbital as antenna is a good picture here, it would loose eV-scale energy, creating a photon carrying also the angular momentum - what requires localization.
    Instead, the quickly collapsing p—e—p system is itself kind of a (single impulse) linear antenna, like in EMP weapon: http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb3.htm
    I got the cylindrical wave picture from particle model I consider ( as topological solitons: starting with Faber’s charge quantization as topological charge: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1416 , slides about topological soliton models: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12405967/soliton.pdf ) - I usually get a reasonable explanation when I ask this model.
    So the symmetric p—e—p fusion there would start by aligning their spins in line - they close together on this line. In this model, electric charge is rotation on this line (can be fractional for “quarks”: baryon structure itself enforces some rotation – not necessarily a complete charge). Finally they can release the MeV-scale rotational stress – which is cylindrically symmetric. While I see the mechanism for particle creation while e.g. beta decay, here everything is too symmetric – and so also the releasing wave should be.

    But ... these impulses should produce an EM noise outside of very high frequency ... they might be too short to directly detect it (?), and most should be absorbed by medium (?)
    What observable effects should we expect for this explaination?

    And generally I don’t see any other reasonable possibility to release MeV-scale energy in a clean way (?):
    - High energy baryon would seem right … but there is no way to produce it,
    - As neutrino? This energy would escape the system, not heating it,
    - High-energy electron seems a reasonable alternative, but betas are told to be insufficient,
    - Hundreds … thousands of gammas … but it would require some enormously complicated relaxation mechanism,
    - I have seen phonons mentioned somewhere, but this the next step - first we we need to release this energy from the nucleus.

    Thanks for the interest about MERW, let me know if you have some question.There have recently appeared dozens of applications in network analysis, image analysis, neural tractography and others (our PRL paper has >60 citations) – I hope stochastic specialists will finally look at the physics applications: “quantum” corrections to stochastic models, what may be crucial e.g. in molecular dynamics or to understand electron’s trajectories e.g. in semiconductors.

    • Official Post

    What I understand in Ed Storms appendix is more a call for theory, explaining how things should happen, but not really describing a detailed scenario.

    the great mystery for me is when the hydroton is supposed to dissipate energy before the merging happen.
    For me Ed Storms ask for a theoretical effort on that possibility, that he sees as the only one.
    This make me think about the Discrete Breather spontaneous appearance. the problem is that DB in crystal work at few eV, while for Hydroton few MeV of dissipated energy are needed.
    This mean that the nonlinear coupling of lattice, producing DB should be of the keV range... It mean it can only be nucleus coupling, or maybe deep electrons, but accross atoms in a huge lattice of coupled nucleus... and all at high temperature...

    On great point you share with hydroton, and that seduce me, is that p-e-p symmetry allows (not enforce) low energy results, because no huge momentum have to be generated... but there is more to prevent pairs of energetic particles, as we don't see...

  • Dear Jarek,
    You theory is in many ways similar to mine. The most important point we share is that we understood that the electron is what makes LENR possible. And Edmund Storms shares this as well.
    On my web-page you can find my theory. The quickest way to look at it is through my poster and the draft article of ICCF19:

    Last year I was convinced as you are now that the LENR are p/d/t-e-p/d/t. They would be ternuclear reactions (three particle react at the same time). But then I understood that the required symmetry (events synchronization) is too much even for a coupling mechanism. Moreover there MUST be a neutral intermediate particle which is NOT the neutron. In fact without a neutral particle there could be no transmutations far from the NAE and heavy nuclei should not react because are far too heavily protected by the electron shells from any intrusion of a charged particle. Think about Cs133 …

    In addition, with ternulcear reactions you end up with inconsistencies with the experiments and you need to postulate strange things like the beta decaying H4 isotope.

    Electrons do not not fall on the nucleus because they have a size which is much larger than the nucleons: the diameter of the ZB is around 386 [fm].

    About Hidden Variables (HV):
    HV have two drawbacks (Bell): They are non-local and Contextual.
    My opinion: the non-locality comes from the fact that all particles are intrinsically light-like.
    I think (I am not alone …) that the commonly accepted formalism of spin is, as unbelievable as it may sound, WRONG. So the theorem of Kochen and Specker cannot be applied and HV are NON-contextual. Sooner or later HV will be reconsidered and will supersede what is now the canonical interpretation.

    Best regards

    Andrea Calaon

    • Official Post

    about three-nuclear reaction, I would like to have your opinion.
    N-body interaction, as I understand are nearly impossible unless it is a twobody interaction... :D
    I mean that to make N-body interact, like p-e-p, it seems probable that two particle are in fact entangled as a virtual particle (a twin pair) so that one particle interact with the twin pair.

    here it seems logical that p and p are entangled, and interact with e...
    but it may be also that many p, interact with many e...

    this is why Discrete breather theory is interesting because they propose that 2 particle get entangled by coupling with the DB, and start to be delocalized. if in the middle of that dance, there is an electron, something may happen?

    what do you think?

  • Dear AlainCo, I really don't understand how eV-scale lattice breathers could help crossing MeV-scale Coulomb barrier?

    Dear Andrea,
    I have looked at your materials and indeed there is a lot in common with Gryzinski's picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fall_atomic_model
    He also explains de Broglie's clock/zitterbewegung as precession of electron's magnetic dipole moment: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00670821

    Look at electron's trajectories when we remember about magnetic dipole moment of electron - it explains why electrons don't fall on nucleus: there appears Lorentz force perpendicular to the velocity, bending the trajectory and preventing collision.
    Indeed the required symmetry for three-particle collapse seems improbable, but looking at trajectory of electron: remembering about magnetic dipole moment, there are closed trajectories jumping between two nuclei: free-falling on one nucleus, back-scattering, free-falling on the second, back-scattering and so on.
    There is still needed some initial nuclei velocity for the fusion, the probability of such event need to be calculated, but the scenario seems reasonable - without any exotic physics.

    Regarding the Bell inequalities, their violation comes from the "probability = amplitude^2" relation.
    You should look at Maximal Entropy Random Walk - repairing stochastic models to be in agreement with the (Jaynes) maximal entropy principle ... and "coincidentally" with quantum mechanics. The "probability = amplitude^2" relation also appears there.
    To understand why our world doesn't fulfill Bell's inequality, remember that all theories including QED are Lagrangian mechanics. One of formulation of Lagrangian mechanics is through action optimization: we can imagine that the history of our Universe is the action optimizing solution of the situation in the Big Bang and let say eventual Big Crunch in the future.
    My point is that in Lagrangian picture, we live in kind 4D jello: the present moment is equilibrium between past and future (see e.g. Wheeler experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…delayed_choice_experiment ), while in Bell we assume only past->future correlations.

    • Official Post


    That is the problem.
    DB in crstal lattice, seems not able to do that... except if delocalization allows tunnel effect (have to compute)...
    My question is if it is possible to have DB at keV level? by coupling deep electrons or nucleus?

    For me discrete breather is not a theory, it is a phenomenon that is one of the only one when energy spontaneously concentrate...

    I don't see any other phenomenon of concentration which does not lead to hot fusion kind of behavior.

    DB propose two good characteristic :
    - concentration is spontaneous, not improbable
    - it creates entangling and may help dissipating excess energy

    problem as you say is that the only version we observe are around eV energy. is it enough, through delocalization effect ? is there keV version of DB ?

    most mechanism to explain LENR I see are proposing hotfusion mechanism, and/or assume an improbable energy concentration.

    If I had a budget, it would be one of the many direction where to fund research... can 1eV DB help LENR, or can keV DB exist through stronger interactions (deep electrons? nucleus?)?
    Answer is maybe no... :huh:

  • I see belief not explanation.
    Tunneling is another, to "it's quantum" and Heisenberg principle, magical buzzword which sound is supposed to explain everything ... used by physicists when they don't understand what's going on.
    No, even tunneling will not help eV-scale phenomena to cross MeV-scale barrier.
    If we want to understand LENR, we need to ask what is really going on there - including trajectory of electron.

  • Reality Checks:

    Tunneling is the tool and the subject of many Nobel chemistry and physics prizes. Tomonaga, Schwinger, Josephson, Esaki.....

    Lowering an activation energy is the stuff of chemical catalysis. Coulombic repulsion is a major part of the "activation energy" needed to catalyze the huge enthalpy of nuclear fusion. It is an accessible parameter for catalysis and hence also for tunneling.

    1 MeV is 11.6 billion degrees C (or K). Not even the hot fusionists are saying the "activation barrier" is nearly that high. They seem to like a Boltzmann distribution around 450 million K. Fine, that is about 35 keV.

    But the right structure, the right charge distribution, the right catalysis, aka "tunneling" could indeed lower that 35 keV or even an MeV down to a few eV or less.

    Examples of high "activation energies" being lowered to near zero are abundant in chemistry. Examine catalytic approaches to converting C1 to C40+ crude petroleum into gasoline... it's impressively using everything from methane to polycyclics and paraffin. The smaller molecules are catalytically polymerized up to fuel, and the big stuff is typically reacted with hydrogen to give components that can be readily synthesized into convenient fuels. For more local or mundane examples look at the catalytic converter in an automobile or in the best wood, coal or sawdust fired heating stoves.

    Even enthalpically unfavorable reactions can be and are driven in petroleum reforming. But that should be irrelevant here. There is nothing unfavorable about small element fusion, other than the fairly high activation energy, which in even the worst cases is a few percent of yield without catalysis i.e. "without tunneling". For example, the unrealistically high "1 MeV" would still give p + p a COP of 25, that is a theoretical 4% cost of doing that particular reactive "business".

  • Longview, a good intuition about tunneling can be found in Couder's paper ( http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v102/i24/e240401 ) : the exact state of fields is practically random from the perspective of our limited measurement capabilities. This state can sometimes help e.g. crossing a barrier, sometimes make it more difficult - making it practically random from our perspective.
    How large can this influence be?
    Boltzmann distribution explains it: it can theoretically reach any value, but with exponentially dropping probability.
    And we have nearly the same for tunneling: particle can theoretically cross any barrier, but needs more time to accidentally reach energy required for crossing a higher barrier.

    My points are:
    1) eV-scale phenomena have negligible influence on crossing MeV-scale barrier
    2) this thermodynamically averaged picture neglects the details, which seems crucial for the fusion - we can do better: try to understand whats actually going on there, like particle trajectories.

    One can say that there can be some tricks regarding 1) like stochastic resonance - sure, but we need to get into details of such process - see point 2).

  • Jarek's recent "two points" here. Point number one, still in discussion;
    Number two, sounds good to me.

    Yes, Boltzmann can reach any theoretical velocity, but don't expect the
    sparse population of really high velocity nucleons to find each other.
    It will be a rare event and certainly cannot thereby overcome the
    decreased effective size (deBroglie) of high energy particles.

    In a non-relativistic analysis, where the high velocity entity is
    point-like, I suspect that the target still "looks" to the flyer's
    trajectory as also similarly point-like. But, for fun, let's imagine
    that for some reason, the high energy from the right hand tail of
    Boltzmann colliding with a low velocity target could be more likely,
    whether with another nucleon or an electron or the converse. In any
    case, with respect to LENR, something mobile with something quite
    immobile--- now the deBroglie issue might be answered. And particularly
    if the collision were with say a fixed or slow proton shielded by a
    resident electron-- or the exact opposite, or perhaps a hydrogen adhered
    by bond, or otherwise to a low velocity solid or liquid substrate (such as a catalytic transition
    metal droplet or nano-crystallite or nano-blob perhaps fixed in place
    or flying on [or against] the "dust". All at something under a few thousand K to maintain at
    least the possibility of low velocity for the target nucleon or target

    Or possibly a charge
    pair target of e with p, that is e somehow aligned with p but perhaps
    with positions specifically defined by other other surrounding bonds or
    other associations or forces.

    Or taken another way from chemistry and quantum chemistry, an electron pair in some
    specific vulnerable and quite easily donated context... for example a
    classic very active, reactive or catalytic Lewis base, that is an
    "electron pair donor". These are readily made and/or are readily
    available, and they would be consistent with the sometimes or perhaps
    frequently reported observation that alkaline conditions are favorable
    to F-P cells and that many such cells fail in acid conditions -- in spite
    of the intuitive ideas about protons. A hydroxyl (that is an OH
    minus) is a prototypical electron pair donor. See:


    for an informative video with no obvious errors on that subject. Note there
    toward the end (it is brief) that MeLi aka methyl lithium and the old
    Grignard reagent are the "two strongest superbases one is likely to
    encounter". Recall that nearly all liquid or soluble catalysts or co-reagents
    typically have solid state equivalents-- superacids of industrial chemistry are often on ceramic substrates.

    Similarly we can guess that superbases are also used industrially in
    this way. It is simply often easier to keep such a reagent and reuse it in an
    industrial (or lab) setting by rinsing with an appropriate
    solvent, baking in say an inert or selected gas, and otherwise

    And continuing with electrostatic charges: a negative or positive local
    charge at one of those "target sites" might favor steering in a landing
    and might already have the optimal p-e proximity and orientation
    "pre-set" as it were. Further, it seems plausible that, having a
    relatively fixed charge target locus might somehow orient the incoming
    nucleon, or electron [one or a pair] to fulfill some aspect of the
    ultimate assembly for collapse. And here we get into the possibility of
    merging the ideas elucidated by Lou Pagnucco here a couple of months
    back-- where electrical arcs were described as acting to enhance a large magnetic
    vector, giving very high effective mass (momentum) to the "spearhead" to
    use an analogy. And I recall this "tip of the arrow" idea has also been
    mentioned to me by Alain here, possibly in different words.

    See this thread, and particularly Lou Pagnucco's excellent comments:

    deBroglie's equation and heavy electrons

    Note: To support Jarek's Boltzmann point for modern readers who see
    "exponential" from the mouths and keypads of folks in the US who often
    appear not to know any better. The right hand high velocity "tail" on
    Boltzmann's distribution takes on essentially an exponential DECAY, this
    is why it goes out to a theoretical infinity, although in reality it
    suffers eventual collapse to background and/or reaches the binary one or
    none atomic limit (an example of a "quantum" effect not truly from QM
    at all). See some decay curves here, which are easily defined
    mathematically, as most may know:


    As a bit of an aside, many here know that the "infinite" right hand
    tail was the player in physics leading to the "Ultraviolet Catastrophe",
    a prime motive for the development of QM. There may still be some
    relevance for LENR in understanding that "catastrophe".

    Note, Longview has decided that the safety issue posted as an aside here originally deserves its own
    thread. I have cut it out and posted it in the Replication folder. I have attempted to inform Barty,
    David and me356 about the issue [which involves possible or potential beryllium toxicity
    in ANY lithium LENR reaction], until further clarification.... please read and pass on that concern. In short,
    do not open these reactors outside of a glove box-- until further notice.

    Further that "reaction coordinate diagrams", often seen in good chemical
    textbooks, can show us a lot about the role of "activation energy" and
    "tunneling" and how catalysis works.

    For example here:


    Keeping in mind that for fusion, looking at the image [hopefully] linked
    above may give a very misleadingly HIGH estimate for the relative
    effort needed and the diagram may give a misleadingly modest effect of
    the catalytic tunneling that likely occurs when looking at most LENR and
    possibly in Lipinski- but surely in a Rossi- style reactions.


  • I apology, busy time. I don't think we need some additional electron donors to understand fusion - there are already lots of electrons there.
    What we need is to understand the behavior of single electron assisting in fusion scenario.
    Here is example of electron's trajectory for single proton (in (0,0)) from Mathematica notebook attached in the first post - electron performs nearly (angular momentum is nonzero) free-fall on the nucleus and Lorentz force (electron's magnetic dipole moment - proton's charge) bends its trajectory to nearly backscattering:

    Now imagine another proton is approaching from the backcattering direction (x axis) - the electron screens the proton-proton repulsion.
    The question is finding the probability in Avogadro number scale of opportunities:
    - the approaching proton needs to have some initial velocity (Bolztmann) and direction (electron's attraction helps),
    - the electron needs to stabilize between the nuclei (attraction helps).

    There are additional reasons for stabilization (hard to include in calculations) - that everything is happening in a field, trajectory had to "find a resonance" with the field (quantization condition).

  • Jarek,

    I did some calculations to see what transverse EM wavelength, that is say a laser light field but probably traveling parallel to the surface of reactivity (or as Surface Plasmon Resonance, if it were set up right) where the field oscillation might be set to correspond with the protons trajectory, a bit like surfing but on an extremely lateral cut. I decided for now to go with a 250 eV (used because of Lipinski, mainly) proton going 2 nm, which is a distance perhaps similar to your posted diagram above. Whether that is caused by an incoming or resident proton or by say an electrostatic impressed field. I am guessing a 90% probability envelope for a "p" like orbital (d, f ?) might be stretched out 10X beyond its normal excursion (although your diagram looks perhaps like more than that...and I don't know if the numbers represent any real metric values or are arbitrary units.) Anyway pushing ahead:

    So if I did the calculations correctly (and of course I'm neglecting the intense field in the vicinity and what they do to EM propagation speed etc, but considering dielectric K and refractive indices usually don't exceed 3 or 4 (altering vacuum permittivity, with proportional effects on C etc).

    I come up with a proton velocity at 250 eV of 0.0007295675 * C.

    Taking that and the time necessary to travel the 2 nm, I get 2.28446 X 10^minus 15 sec. Coming back the other way to get a photon wavelength that might go through one full, or one half or even one quarter wave in the same time:

    Keeping in mind my several somewhat arbitrary, and other perhaps erroneous assumptions: Full wave for lambda = vT: 2.285 x 10^minus 15 s X 3.00 x 10^8 m/s = 684 nm for full wave exposure-- seemingly giving and then taking away thus not so good. But 684 nm is close to some red commercial pointer style lasers-- by adjusting the electron or the proton energy parameters it might be possible to tune to the EM rather than other way round. Going to half wave exposure, that is not even approximating a continuous acceleration, but essentially pushing or pulling then letting the work be done on the electron collapse, perhaps-- anyway that would correspond to twice the wavelength, or in the range of 1370 nm, certainly lots of near IR laser equipment in that range and with high powers readily available. Finally, the quarter wave, in the range of 2740 nm where the push only (or pull only) is applied quite strongly through nearly the full incursion of the protons path to the nucleus. To get that long a wavelength in good power, there is a line for HeNe at 3391 (3.391 um) that has been available as a package, and might be surplused today. Of course again particle energy parameters could be adjusted, I would think, to meet the EM field rather than the inverse.

    A simple transverse setup (reminding other readers that EM waves that we can manipulate easily are transverse not longitudinal), should be workable with the photon densities of modest power lasers. For SPR the powers have to be much higher to get decent field strengths, (or so I have been told). But SPR can move charges very nicely, we already know that. And of course the energy is dissipated right near the usually reflective surface.

    Well, anyway, it will at least allow others to critique my notions, and maybe I can refine my understanding this way. Hopefully others can benefit as well.

  • Andrea, just re=examining your earlier comments:

    So, with respect to HV (Hidden Variables) it has always occurred to me that this behavior (for want of another word) is simply understood if the phenomenon (e.g. coherence and decoherence and "spooky-action-at-a-distance" etc.) is Universal, and necessarily not susceptible to the limitation of the velocity of light. That is, (perhaps) HV represents some sort of underlying universal phase relationship -- that might be analogous or even identical to an underlying oscillation everywhere in our space-time manifold without any respect to transmission velocities. Coherence of electrons, photons and other particles (spin or otherwise) would be simply be an embedded manifestation of a fundamental property of space-time that we cannot see but can only infer.-- apparently immutably, making it "Universal"... Bell's Inequality and EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) experiments have, and are, providing a glimpse of this underlying feature of the Universe--- not mysterious now that we see that we might simply be one of an infinite number of event horizon "pinch offs" from yet some other system nearly inconceivable to us. I don't like the mysterious nature of it, but even as an agnostic, it is certainly obvious that the Universe exceeds our present understanding. Real understanding may well be blinding... the sort of insights you get after a life of science and cosmology.. The proofs based on Bell's Inequality show quite convincingly that there are no Local Hidden Variables. I take that as a Boolean affirmation that (barring other possibilities) there is then by necessity an immutable Universal HV. That's it. I've unloaded something I have been thinking since taking General Chemistry (majors style), and reading Physical Chemistry about 45 years back. I hope it helps someone, or that it has been obvious to everyone, or that I am beyond help. At least I got that out there and someone, such as you sir, might understand and eventually expand and expound on the notions.

    My apologies, let's get back to the real business at hand....