Anomalies in fracture experiments, and energy exchange between vibrations and nuclei

Abstract

A variety of anomalies have been reported in recent years in fracture experiments, including neutron emission, elemental anomalies, and alpha emission. Such anomalies are similar to those studied in condensed matter nuclear science, which has been of interest to us in the development of theoretical models. In this work a brief review of the new theoretical approach is given, along with connections to both anomalies in fracture experiments and anomalies in other experiments. The fracture anomalies in this picture arise naturally as a result of the relevativistic interaction between vibrations and internal nuclear degrees of freedom, and up-conversion of vibrational quanta. A major conclusion of this work is that the elemental anomalies cannot be accounted for by disintegration as an incoherent process; since the observed products show a high degree of selectivity, while disintegration is very much non-selective. The possibility of disintegration as a coherent quantum process is introduced, and a suggestions for new experiments and measurements are put forth that can help to clarify underlying mechanisms.

Appendix: Anomalies involving THz vibrations

In the two-laser experiment of Letts [101, 102] excess heat events are stimulated at difference frequencies of 8.2, 15.1, and 20.8 THz (the first two of which are good matches for $\varGamma$-point and L-point of the optical phonon mode spectrum); this is relevant if fractionation is involved in excess heat generation. These experiments are consistent with the interpretation that nuclear energy is being fractionated and going into these vibrational modes modes [102].

When there is a net hydrogen (or deuterium) flux in a metal hydride (or deuteride), one expects excitation of high frequency (THz) optical phonon modes. If this excitation is sufficiently strong, it may be that energy exchange under conditions of inverse fractionation occurs, with the possibility that anomalies may be produced. In connection with this issue, excess heat in Fleischmann–Pons experiments is observed to be correlated with deuterium flux at the cathode surface [103, 104]. Also of interest in this discussion are the many anomalies reported by Piantelli et al. [105–108] in NiH gas loading experiments. Excess heat, elemental anomalies, and effects are triggered by temperature or pressure cycles, that can be interpreted as inducing a flux of hydrogen inside the metal. In this case the hydrogen solubility is low, so that excitation of THz acoustic modes is predominant (localized optical phonon excitation in this case is not of interest since the total amount of excitation is limited).

There have been reported anomalies in experiments with ion bombardment, which generates strong THz excitation near the surface. Low-level energetic alpha emission near 15 MeV was reported in glow discharge experiments with PdH and TiH by Lipson et al. [109], which can be interpreted as due to the up-conversion of THz vibrational quanta to MeV-level quanta in the vicinity of the giant dipole resonance above 20 MeV. Storms and Scanlan have observed energetic particle emission from metal samples with a hydrogen discharge [110, 111], which permits a similar interpretation. Karabut has reported a variety of anomalies (other than collimated X-ray emission) in his glow discharge experiments [112] that can be interpreted as resulting from the up-conversion of THz vibrational quanta.