the Physics of Fleischmann Pons Fusion

The theory here on Ichaphysics since 2007 has been proven wrong experimentally. If the alpha catalyzed reaction proposed here were valid, there would be substantial x-ray production from the k-line in the palladium spectrum. There seems to be a small k-line signal, but no where near enough to represent all the energy loss as high energy alpha energy dissipation.  We have spent the last year revisiting our concept and have developed the theory with derivations based in basic solid state physics without new assumptions.

The bonding is basically the same solid state bond derived before, but between two deuterons instead of an alpha particle and deuteron. This bond will be shown to be catalyzed by the PdD environment and accelerated at elevated temperatures.  The linear momentum state bond is mathematically proven to exist through a simple derivation using basic solid state physics. The energy loss mechanism will be shown to be electron energy loss, as an inevitable consequence of the fusion of two deuterons while in a linear momentum state bond.

We will begin updating the theory in the near future. There are also experiments being independently conducted as a consequence of the new theory and updates of the these results will also be presented when available.

The silence is deafening. Oil is over $130/barrel, everyone (except me) it seems is convinced that catastrophic  "global warming" is at hand, and this demonstration in Japan.....doesn't matter. You gotta love it. Perhaps Arata needs to hire a publicity agent from Hollywood. It appears that we will have to wait until someone figures this thing out to the point of driving a fusion powered car to Detroit (more probably Tokyo). Actually, I prefer that this discovery go this route. Perhaps  it will demonstrate to the populace that the federal government is not all powerful (I doubt it).

 Meanwhile, the work goes on in basements around the world to figure out the cold fusion mechanism. The hypothesis presented here is a small part of the ongoing work. We have labored to find a logical, fairly straight forward explanation for the fusion reactions. With chapter 5 we have shown how the different half-lives for the fusion reaction occur. In the next chapter we will elaborate on the reasons for He⁴ as the main by-product, instead of tritium and or neutrons. Stay tuned.

The biggest problem with the Feischmann-Pons fusion experiments, is the lack of reproducibility. Since modeling the macroscopic channeling-reaction dynamics, it is fairly obvious to us why. There is a huge need to generate an accurate channeling-reaction model, but even the crude model we have developed shows the critical nature of the deuterium concentration and crystal quality. A more accurate description of the relative concentration of the octahedral and tetrahedral phases of deuterium, versus temperature and loading, is extremely critical to the dynamics of the problem. The channeling dynamics are also critical, and little understood; another area ripe for high powered modeling (read- university graduate student). Alas, this won't happen until a totally reproducible experiment is developed. If the model developed here has any validity, such an experiment shouldn't be too far off.

We have been amused at the few comments on the internet about our site/theory. It is obvious that the commentators have not taken the time to read the theory, or understand it; typical internet discussion. There is just too much information out there to spend much time on one thing...understandable. We will continue with our "internet book", and either bring the theory into the light of experiments, or admit to a major philosophical error in our reasoning...but this will probably take some many months to a year. Those out there that have criticized us for not having a "definitive experiment", need to read closer. We will not discuss experiments until we have laid the ground work to understand them; but the experiments become obvious to the close reader. This seems reasonable to us. We do not have the resources to do the experiments ourselves, and would not ask others to commit to the arduous task of experimentation, without a completely consistent theory, in turn, based on accepted theory. A theory that can lead to an unambiguous experiment, which can only come (in a timely way) from a thorough understanding of the mechanism.

I know you all out there in internet land think this guy is another nut case. And you should. When you have clowns out there like Randel Mills inventing a whole new Quantum Mechanics to explain things; well you have to be leery. Our efforts here are much more sanguine. We are using just the basic rules laid down in all the introductory QM texts: no hydrinos here!

We do promise to explain all the "data to reconcile". My favorite piece of data is the original melt down of Fleischmann and Pons. Think about it. This incident requires that the nuclear reactions continue, even after the piece of palladium melts. There isn't any lattice to couple to, so all the theories that try to couple energy to a lattice should probably start again. Either the reaction has nothing to do with the lattice, or there is an intermediate with a half life of at least many minutes. Of course this in direct contradiction of observations by the Navy, which give flashes of heat in less than a second...go figure. We think the lattice is important, so there must be an intermediate. When the intermediate explanation of both of these fell out of our model, we were pretty sure we were on the right track. You'll see that we get an intermediate, the Hed₂ molecule, which has several states of angular momentum. One state gives a half life ~mili-seconds the other ~10's of minutes to an hour. We are in the process of refining our calculations, hence the delay in publishing.

Anyway...the minutes to hour half life is the culprit responsible for the melt down. Here is a little prevue of the chain reaction dynamics that makes it all happen. If we start with 100 high energy helium atoms, we need a little over 50 to keep the reaction going. This is because each reaction will creat 2 high energy helium atoms. lets say we need 55 of the heliums to make it to the fusion reaction. It takes exactly 50 to maintain the recycle, but we want a melt down, so lets make it 55.

Now if 80% of the reacting Helium gives a half-life of 0.001 seconds and 20% gives a half-life of 10 minutes we get:

55 *.8= 44 reacting with 0.001 sec. half-life

55*0.2 =11 with 10 minute half life

The result is 55 recycled heliums that act pretty much like they all have a half life of 10 minutes. This isn't too different than the moderating reaction in nuclear reactors using uranium. There is an intermediate neutron emitter with a couple minute half life, which makes throttling a nuclear reactor possible. If all the reactions were very fast, the reaction would be a bitch to control; like the A-bomb... or like the little flashes that the Navy finds. These are caused by a very high efficiency of recycle; say 70 of the 100 helium (we will explain the efficiecy difference in amuch latter chapter: its pretty straight forward). In this case you get:

70*0.8=56 reacting with 0.001 sec half life.

70*0.2-14 with 10 minute.

In this case the 0.001 half life has enough recycle to carry on its own chain reaction. So after about 200 cycles of this (time =200*0.001=.2 seconds) there are (2*0.56)^200~7e9 reactions per cycle. That's more than enough to make a flash, and in less than a second.

In the case of FLeischmann and Pons melt down, they had a good efficiency, but still at the level of the 10 minute controlling half life. When the palladium started to melt, there was still a lot of half life to go, and nothing to stop the already formed intermediate. Pretty cool eh!.

It seems to me, with the vast amount of good data available, it is inconceivable that some academic solid state physicist didn't solve the riddle of cold fusion long ago on a slow weekend. It is, I guess, a good lesson in human behavior. In the days of Neils Bohr and Enrico Fermi, this would have been a weekend distraction. We need to teach more philosophy, history, and perhaps psychology, to our technical students.

It is after reading the biographies of some of the early physics greats (Boltzman, Bohr, Rutherford, Maxwell etc..) that you get a feeling for how discoveries are made and grudgingly accepted by peers. It became obvious ,by 2002, that cold fusion was one of these discoveries. The exciting part for us was that, hey, this could be fairly simple. When you look back to discoveries like the Bohr atom, they look pretty simple. It was a giant leap in its day, but conceptually pretty simple stuff in hindsight.

So what do you see when you look at the list of cold fusion behavior; the data?

The thing that jumped at me was, this is obviously a chain reaction. Next question (this is just like playing CSI Miami) is what could possibly be the chain reacting species. In chemistry we deal with chain reactions all the time. Usually they are like polymerization chain reactions, say free radical chain reactions. A+A^. => AA^. then AA^. +A => AAA^. and so on. This is not the model we want. We want a chain reaction like a uranium fission chain reaction where Ur+neutron=> 2 fission fragments + ~2 neutrons. You need the two neutrons because some of them go astray and are lost. In cold fusion we want to fuse two deuterium (d) nuclei into helium (He⁴) . So we want a reaction equation something like A+d+d=>He⁴+2A. We want at least 2 A's because any physical process is less than 100% efficient, just like the lost neutrons.

Physicists would look at that and say, you can't have a 3 body nuclear reaction and keep the reaction efficiency at 50%. It would be more like 10^-100 %(=1/googol) or some ridiculously small number; and for nuclear reactions that's a pretty good conclusion. Everyone seems to forget that we are talking cold fusion. This means chemical reactions causing the fusion of deuterium. This is where you loose all the physicists, because this is alchemy, with all its sordid history. It is sort of a taboo to even think along those lines, like dating your sister, just doesn't happen (outside of West Virginia).

Chemistry is full of 3 body reactions. Biology is almost all 3 body reactions, read enzymes. Most catalytic reactions have 3 species involved; 1) the catalyst, 2) chemical activated by the catalyst, and 3) the reactant. Very basic stuff to chemists. So were almost half way there.

A bit of an aside about energy levels 

The energy of a chemical bond is around a few electron volts. Room temperature atoms have an energy around 0.027 eV. One electron Volt in temperature terms would be ~11,000 C. (Makes you wonder how any chemical bonds are ever broken at room temperature!) If you allow yourself to think in terms of alchemy, this means that much lower than usual energies can be used to react nuclei. Deuterium fusion becomes more likely at higher energies, but reasonable rates can be achieved between ~1,000 and 100,000 eV. The best known alchemy reaction, muon fusion of deuterium, has a chemical bond of only some 550 eV (6 million degrees C), and the fusion reaction only takes ~micro-seconds (~10^-6 seconds). The nuclear chemistry works because the alchemy chemical is stable, allowing a relatively long time for a low probability fusion event (hot fusion reactions happen in ~10^-21 seconds).

So we have this reaction A+d+d=>He+2A. At first glance this doesn't make a lot of sense, but bear with me. What if A=He. Note that the equation is not an algebraic equation, it is a chemical reaction equation. Thus if A=He we get He+d+d=>2He....perfect. Well, except that helium is pretty much the most chemically inert element known to man. This is where you would loose the chemists, if they bothered to get this far.

But guess what? This is exactly what happens. And don't worry, we are not going to do any hand waving to make this happen. Mother nature does it all for us. You just have to follow the logic; but it is a fairly long story.

Back to the data. So why did I think chain reaction right away? First look at the Navy infra-red video. Little "gone critical" chain reactions all over the place. And if you did your homework, you know that High energy (10's of MeV) particles will travel about 10 to 20 microns in palladium. Guess how big the little hot spots are? That's right, 10's of microns. (Those little bursts are just like Fermi's fist nuclear pile, only the pile had to be 10's of feet across, since the neutrons would travel many feet before reacting.) And Fleischmann and Pons gone critical cube of palladium is folk lore. The instability of the "excess energy" (heat bursts), is also legend in the cold fusion community, a good sign of an uncontrolled chain reaction. On a mysterious note...heat after death is not part of the chain reaction (heat after death is some cold fusion jargon meaning heat after you turn off electrolysis).

The chain reaction scenario also takes care of the energy dissipation problem with the formation of He⁴. There are simply two helium atoms that leave the reaction site in opposite directions, each with ~12Mev of energy, no neutrons, no tritium, no gamma rays. The details of all this will be in the main body of the web site. Bottom line is, it works; you'll see. And it will be fun, I guarantee.