Day: January 20, 2009

Enhanced fusion reactions in metal deuterides

[0901.2411] A model for enhanced fusion reaction in a solid matrix of metal deuterides.

A model for enhanced fusion reaction in a solid matrix of metal deuterides

Authors: K. P. Sinha, A. Meulenberg

Our study shows that the cross-section for fusion improves considerably if d-d pairs are located in linear (one-dimensional) chainlets or line defects. Such non-equilibrium defects can exist only in a solid matrix. Further, solids harbor lattice vibrational modes (quanta, phonons) whose longitudinal-optical modes interact strongly with electrons and ions. One such interaction, resulting in potential inversion, causes localization of electron pairs on deuterons. Thus, we have attraction of D+ D- pairs and strong screening of the nuclear repulsion due to these local electron pairs (local charged bosons: acronym, lochons). This attraction and strong coupling permits low-energy deuterons to approach close enough to alter the standard equations used to define nuclear-interaction cross-sections. These altered equations not only predict that low-energy-nuclear reactions (LENR) of D+ D- (and H+ H-) pairs are possible, they predict that they are probable.

…would be nice to see this in a peer-reviewed journal rather than the arXiv slush-pile, but it did get an airing at a conference. Would be nice if such “low energy nuclear reactions” were studied a bit more dispassionately. The “cold fusion” circus really poisoned the well for anyone wanting to look at the data for themselves.

Did life begin in a pool of acidic gloop? – life – 19 January 2009 – New Scientist

Did life begin in a pool of acidic gloop? – life – 19 January 2009 – New Scientist.

First thing that strikes me is: well that’s obvious! Getting out of the lab and into the wild is guaranteed to break the conceptual mold. Deamer is a clever man and his work is very interesting.

Second, what if ribo-organisms could use sulfuric acid? Could they colonise the clouds of Venus? Weird particles float around in Venus’ clouds and no one has identified them for sure yet – perhaps they’re sulfuric acid life?

Third, making RNA is a significant step, but there’s still a big informational gap between some oligonucleotides and a living cell. The problem isn’t as bad as once imagined – ribo-organisms could have genomes about 7,000 bases long. But “random” sequence shuffling won’t make a functional genome in less than many quadrillions of Hubble times. Some higher level principle had to have organised the RNA to boot-strap life. Deamer and Szostak are still a ways from finding out just what it was.

Were Mercury and Mars separated at birth? – space – 19 January 2009 – New Scientist

Were Mercury and Mars separated at birth? – space – 19 January 2009 – New Scientist.

Brad Hansen discovers that modelling a ring of debris makes two large planets and interrupts the growth of two others, thus reproducing the planets as we know them. In the process a Mars-like object would be needed to collide with Earth to make the moon and something akin is needed to strip Mercury’s mantle bare, but those are secondary details.

Question is: How did the debris ring arise?

Michael Woolfson’s Capture Theory has a natural answer – the solar system had two more gas giants than its present configuration and they collided, their silicate/metallic remnants forming a debris ring from which planets could form. But why only gas giants? That’s the trick – as Woolfson points out, gas giants form naturally via gravitational instability from gas filaments produced in a tidally distorted protostar. Terrestrial planets don’t, and have to be explained another way.

The little publicised gap in planet formation modelling is that going from the observed circumstellar dust to the planetesimals assumed by standard planet-forming theories is very, very hard to do. The dust if too small gets blown away, and if too large (but not large enough) falls into the star due to gas drag. Finding a process to counter-attack these two loss mechanisms is a damned hard problem, and one Woolfson-style theories tries to avoid entirely.

In science telling such origin theories apart needs better observational data at higher resolutions than we can presently attain. But bigger and better telescopic devices are coming soon…

Did dark energy give us our cosmos? – space – 17 January 2009 – New Scientist

Did dark energy give us our cosmos? – space – 17 January 2009 – New Scientist.

According to Paul Steinhardt and colleagues dark energy stretches out the Universe for a trillion years, then it bashes into another Universe in a higher dimension, causing a new “Big Bang”. The stretching ensures that the clashing Universes are flat enough that their encounter doesn’t create too many regions of over density that collapse into massive black-holes and gobble up space-time.

Makes me wonder if Life from a previous cycle can’t find a handy place to hide while the two clash together in a Big Bang. Thus Life could end up being older than the current space-time. Maybe.