Soft X-ray Continuum Radiation from Low- Energy Pinch Discharges in Presence of Molecular Hydrogen

Validation of the Observation of Soft X-ray Continuum Radiation from Low- Energy Pinch Discharges in the Presence of Molecular Hydrogen

Alexander Bykanov, PhD

Spectroscopy was performed at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Cambridge, MA, USA by CfA spectroscopists under contract to GEN3 Partners

Abstract
Spectra of low-energy high current pinch discharges in pure molecular hydrogen and helium were recorded in the EUV region at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA (CfA) in an attempt to reproduce experimental results published by BlackLight Power, Inc. showing continuum radiation only from hydrogen [1-2].
Alternative explanations to the claimed explanation of the observation of predicted continuum radiation at 10.1 and 22.8 nm and going to longer wavelengths for transitions of H to lower-energy states were considered.

The continuum radiation was observed at CfA in the 10–30 nm region that comprised two bands with one having a short wavelength cutoff at about 10 nm and another was identifiable as a slope change on the fi rst at about 23 nm. Considering the low energy of 5.2 J per pulse, the observed radiation in the energy range of about 120 eV to 40 eV, and reference experiments with He, no conventional explanation was found to be plausible including electrode metal emission, Bremsstrahlung radiation, ion recombination, molecular or molecular ion band radiation, and instrument artifacts involving radicals and energetic ions reacting at the CCD and H 2 re-radiation at the detector chamber.

V. Conclusions
The CfA group reproduced the published results of BlackLight Power, Inc. [1-2]. Continuum radiation was observed from pure hydrogen over the spectral region ~10 to 30 nm; whereas, no continuum was observed from helium plasmas run under essentially identical conditions. Only helium ion and background oxygen ion emission were observed; wherein, the latter was common to both plasma sources. By comparing all hydrogen results involving different electrodes, gratings, spectrometers, and numbers of CCD image superpositions, it was concluded that the same emitter was common in all cases of hydrogen continuum emission and that the spectral width varied due to variations in the spectral intensity or detection sensitivity. The hydrogen continuum radiation comprised two profiles, one with a short wavelength cutoff at about 10 nm and a second was distinguishable by a reversal of the slope of the intensity versus wavelength in the region of 22-23 nm.

Plasma physicist A. Bykanov evaluated specific known mechanisms using data from the literature and the input of further test data from BLP. Elect rode metal emission was eliminated since the spectral features were the same over any given region where it was intense enough to be detected, and the intensity was shown to be proportional to concentration of hydrogen. Recombination and Bremsstrahlung radiation mechanisms were excluded because the intensities of these types of continuum spectra scale with Z as Z 2 or Z 4 , respectively.

Thus, we should have observed a mo re intense continuum spectrum in He (Z=2) than in H 2 (Z=1). Energetic electrons from an electron gun as an agent influencing the continuum band was eliminated due to the observation that changing the high voltage from -10 kV to -15 kV had no effect on the spectral profile. Band radiation for molecular electronic transitions broadened by vibrational and rotational transitions including hydrogen molecular or molecular ion emission cannot be the source due the extraordinary energy (>100 eV) of the continuum radiation compared to the energy levels of these species. Another reason for excluding this mechanism is the broad energy width of the continuum band (~60eV) that cannot be explained by the current plasma temperature (max 15 eV, most likely <10 eV).

By using spectral-region-cutoff filters and recording the spectral profile change with changing of the CCD position, the source of the continuum radiation was confirmed to be the hydrogen plasma, and the emission was deemed a true spectrum. Addition of hydrogen gas to the CCD chamber had no effect on the emission profile. These results eliminated detect ion artifacts as possibilities. In summary, considering the low energy of 5.2 J per pulse, the observed radiation in the photon energy range from 40 eV to 120 eV, and reference experiments with He and oxygen, no convention explanation was found to be plausible including electrode metal emission, Bremsstrahlung radiation, ion recombination, molecular or molecular ion band radiation, and instrument artifacts involving radicals and energetic ions reacting at the CCD and H 2 re-radiation at the detector.

Interesting discussion of this paper on Vortex-L.

I think Jones Beene is onto something when he says that Reverse Proton Fusion (RPF) is the simplest explanation of LENR and this paper supports RPF, not Mills.

Jones Beene jonesb9@pacbell.net via eskimo.com

11/3/13

to vortex-l
This paper was mentioned 18 months ago on vortex - but has almost been
ignored by the LENR community since then ... possibly due to some kind of
absurd jealousy over anything “Millsean” ... i.e. from Randell Mills

http://www.blacklightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/GEN3_Harvard.pdf

Forget Randy - Read this paper in the context in Rossi-type LENR - instead
of Mills.

Pay close attention to detains in the nanometer geometry ! In my opinion
this paper supports LENR, instead of Mills! Look at those spikes on the
charts- clearly much more energy than chemical.

In fact the details actually seem to go against some of Mills pronouncements
- and consequently they can be read as confirming LENR - but in a
non-exactly “nuclear”.

Maybe you can call it “quasi-nuclear” instead of “supra-chemical” but this
paper may be the very best and most informative thing out there to bolster a
variety of LENR... while shifting the emphasis away from BLP and away from
LENR.

Jones Beene jonesb9@pacbell.net

11/3/13

to vortex-l
I’m guessing that PhDs can be hired there for a fraction of the cost of
places like Boston... and that in contracting for this kind of experiment it
may be an indication that they do not really know what is going on ... and
are trying to find out from other POVs why the observed values are not
exactly the predicted Rydberg values.

Jones Beene jonesb9@pacbell.net

11/5/13

to vortex-l
There are several possibilities for the UV, Lou - and your hat is now in the
ring along with Randy Mills and a few others.

Cleary EUV and soft x-rays are involved. Clearly the values are not falling
into the expected Rydberg levels. One value that stands out in this study is
the 19.29 nm wavelength. It should be 22.8 nm for Mills - and the excuse
given does not ring true. There could be some kind of cut-off but I’m not
buying it - simply because the graph would not be so spiked.

I’m glad to see any well-considered suggestions to explain it. My suggestion
is far-out as well (92 million miles out) but many heard have heard it
before and it is definitely a minority viewpoint. (so I take every
opportunity to “radiate it”).

Curiously 19.3 nm is a value that turns up often in solar astronomy.

http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?newsID=26419

There could be one or more mundane explanations for this. In the paper
above, the detector was designed to look for this value, but for a good
reason. The the sun was photographed in ultraviolet light at a wavelength of
19.3 nanometers - 25 times shorter than wavelengths of visible light -
simply because it is characteristic of solar energy. That wavelength is
blocked by Earth’s atmosphere, so to observe it astronomers must get above
the atmosphere.

To cut to the chase - this mass-energy value, 19.3 nm, appears to be the
expected energy release from solar RPF.

Solar RPF is a theory of “reversible proton fusion”. It is also known as the
diproton reaction. But make no mistake - the so-called “diproton” is helium
and NOT hydrogen, even though its lifetime is extremely short.

For every instance of real fusion on the sun there are about 10^20 instances
of transient diprotons, which are fusing for a few femtoseconds and then
reversing back to protons. This instant reversibility is due basically to
the Pauli exclusion principle. However, due the short instant of binding
there are energetic QCD color changes which take place in the six quarks.

In short, at least in this RPF hypothesis, nickel-hydrogen gain on earth, is
based on the solar model of RPF and the relevant emission is EUV at 19.3 nm
and not Mills’ Rydberg value.

-——Original Message-——
From: pagnucco@htdconnect.com

Jones,

A good find.

I have only read it quickly, but maybe a simpler explanation suffices.

Anomalous ‘continuum’ emissions occur only in proportion to hydrogen
present. This leads me to conjecture that:

Elliptical Rydberg H-atoms form and ionize, creating fairly intense (mixed
e-p) current filaments, along with (in the lab frame) a strong magnetic
vector potential (’A-field’) pointing in the plasma flow direction.

Some of the ionizing e-p pairs form transient, non-stationary colliding
waveforms trapped in their own embracing coulomb potentials.
(Several QM texts cover the math of transient coulomb collisions.)

As the e-p collide, they slow dramatically. In their collision frame
the vector potential (A-field) suddenly shrinks, donating it’s field
energy to the collision (to obey momentum conservation.)

By conventional physics (see Feynman ref[1] below), this must force e-p
wave function into highly localized, high kinetic energy, compressed
pairs - “compressive” collisions similar to colliding rubber balls, as
opposed to colliding billiards.

When the proton recaptures the electron, returning to a stationary state,
the K.E. borrowed from the A-field is radiated and observed.

The author rules out both bremsstrahlung and recombination.
My conjecture combines counter-intuitive elements of both.
If it’s correct, no exothermic LENR occurs, but still a valuable experiment.

— Lou Pagnucco

[1] Feynman Lectures, v3, ch21, “Schrodinger’s equation in a magnetic field”
http://www.peaceone.net/basic/Feynman/V3%20Ch21.pdf

Pertinent extract (p.21-5) -
“But remember what happens electrically when I suddenly turn on a flux.
During the short time that the flux is rising, there’s an electric field
generated whose line integral is the rate of change of the flux with time:

E = - dA/dt (21.16)

That electric field is enormous if the flux is changing rapidly, and it
gives a force on the particle. The force is the charge times the electric
field, and so during the build up of the flux the particle obtains a total
impulse (that is, a change in mv) equal to -qA. In other words, if you
suddenly turn on a vector potential at a charge, this charge immediately
picks up an ‘mv’ momentum equal to -qA.”

Jones Beene wrote:
> This paper was mentioned 18 months ago on vortex - but has almost been
> ignored by the LENR community since then ... possibly due to some kind of
> absurd jealousy over anything “Millsean” ... i.e. from Randell Mills
>
> http://www.blacklightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/GEN3_Harvard.pdf
>
> Forget Randy - Read this paper in the context in Rossi-type LENR - instead
> of Mills.
>
> Pay close attention to detains in the nanometer geometry ! In my opinion
> this paper supports LENR, instead of Mills! Look at those spikes on the
> charts- clearly much more energy than chemical.
>
> In fact the details actually seem to go against some of Mills
> pronouncements
> - and consequently they can be read as confirming LENR - but in a
> non-exactly “nuclear”.
>
> Maybe you can call it “quasi-nuclear” instead of “supra-chemical” but this
> paper may be the very best and most informative thing out there to bolster
> a
> variety of LENR... while shifting the emphasis away from BLP and away
> from
> LENR.
>
> Jones
>

Jones Beene jonesb9@pacbell.net

11/6/13

to vortex-l
One further point Lou. You wrote:

> I also wish that other spectral anomalies were observed - besides the
broadband soft X-ray/EUV apparently due to hydrogen, but I believe that
the 19.29 nm line is due to the oxidized cathode/anode surfaces -
oxygen contamination.

Yes - this line is close to a known emission/absorption line of
oxygen/ozone... which explains why the strongest solar UV is absorbed before
reaching the earth’s surface - due to oxygen in the stratosphere. We would
not be here otherwise.

But several obvious facts make me think that most of energy represented by
this line (and the extreme spike in the charts) - will not be related to
oxidation of electrodes. (a small percentage could be related).

First - good experimenters are not that careless with their apparatus to
allow significant oxidation. Second is the large proportion of net energy
allocated to that line. Third is the fact that electrodes are generally
chosen and manufactured not oxidize. Fourth is the lack of expected signal
at the Rydberg level when all of that hydrogen is present. Fifth is that the
hydrogen in the experiment would reduce any electrode oxidation (clean the
electrode) so the net residual would be tiny. Sixth is cosmological- the
lack of oxygen on the sun despite the sun’s strong 19.3 signal. Taken
together, this facts indicate that this line represents far more than a
relic of oxygen.

Our sun is a massive source of 19.3 nm UV, once the observer gets out of the
earth’s atmosphere. Given that Hydrogen represents 91.2% of all atoms on the
sun and oxygen accounts for only 8 atoms per every 10,000 it is almost
unimaginable to me that the strong 19.3 nm line is due primarily to oxygen.
There must be another large source. (but again, oxygen could be partly
responsible - a few percent)

In the present RPF hypothesis, this line is mostly due to reversible P+P
fusion to 2He (the diproton) which immediately reverses back to two protons,
with QCD supplying the UV photon release and more. Indeed, several other UV
and soft x-ray lines may result from RPF and QCD interaction.

So the solar model is a complicated situation - made even more complicated
by the fact that solar RPF reactions could be balanced between exotherm and
endotherm. (the internal UV photons are absorbed and not re-emitted)

Thus the net energy released from the sun may not be augmented to a large
degree - by energy represent in this UV line, or more likely - slightly
augmented.
Jones Beene jonesb9@pacbell.net

11/6/13

to vortex-l
In re-reading this thread, one other factor is worth mentioning wrt the
“oxygen connection” to LENR. It does tie the Gen3 paper to Randell Mills via
the Rydberg levels of hydrogen AND oxygen (when aligned and slightly
unbalanced on the high side).

It could easily be true that oxygen is desirable for promoting LENR, whether
through contamination on not, and the emphasis should have been placed on
“Rydberg and its proximity” in the sense of promoting a limited chain
reaction. Oxygen (or O++) both have a beneficial “energy hole” at an exact
Rydberg level of ionization potential - so as to make them ideal Mills’
catalysts; and now we find that there could also be this coincidental
relationship of UV resonance at a slightly more energetic ~ 19-20 nm. This
photon would naturally downshift to 22.8 nm in the process of ionization of
neutral catalysts - and that may be why the variance is need not be
explained as being important. In fact, it may be beneficial !!

IOW - for those who do not follow Mills’ complex theory, the need for oxygen
would be twofold - not only is it catalytic for ground state redundancy, BUT
if we want to find a valid hybrid of Mills’ theory together with LENR and UV
resonance, then we now have the complete answer in the UV (being on the high
side of Rydberg). Mills’ theory predicts fractional hydrogen - what are
essentially “neutral protons” (virtual neutrons) and when these get close
enough to each other - voila - we have RPF without the Coulomb problem !

RPR then releases the “hotter” UV photon which can create another catalytic
hole (when slightly downshifted) especially in oxygen preferentially. A
limited chain reaction, mediated by UV photons, is the result.

In short, this hybridized version provides a more complete picture than
Mills, especially since he depends on “angular momentum” of electrons as the
ultimate energy source. Bollocks.

In fact there is no asymmetry to play with - since these electrons
necessarily gain that angular momentum back in the end. RPF is a much more
elegant source for the excess energy since it is true QCD conversion of
mass-to-energy, without the need to explain “where are all the hydrinos?”.
In fact, they are none as they are immediately reinflated.

This hypothesis also provides a limited kind of chain reaction in three
stages instead of two. Since the UV photon from RPF is more energetic than
required but +close+ to the correct value (wavelength is slightly shorter),
that photon can provide a higher probability of success for the next “hole”
formation which then makes the necessary fuel to continue the reaction. The
fuel is f/H (fractional hydrogen aka “hydrino”) but it re-inflates every
time and the reaction would be slightly endothermic without the RPF.

This may seem like a too-fine distinction, at least to make the claim for a
substantial theoretical improvement over Mills; but it may be just that: a
hybrid which does exactly what CQM cannot do. Which is to explain everything
with fewer loose ends.

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