In this paper, the many-body collective features of the Widom-Larsen theory of LENRs are further extended to cover cases of LENRs that can occur in exploding wires, prosaic electrical arcs, and natural atmospheric lightning; systems that comprise vastly lower density, gaseous ionized plasmas. Conceptually, such systems are treated as magnetically organized, plasma-filled structures having tubular geometries.
The paper explains exactly how longer range many-body collective magnetic field effects can induce substantial production of neutrons via weak e + p reactions in such organized structures, both in the laboratory and in Nature. In such magnetically dominated LENR regimes, energy required to drive weak interaction neutron production is transferred and delivered to embedded charged particles (e.g., electrons) through much longer-range collective magnetic field effects.
Thus, the physics of this regime differs somewhat from W-L physics that applies to micron-scale LENR-active regions found on condensed matter surfaces whereon nuclear-strength, very localized electric fields provide energy needed to drive ULM neutron production via weak interactions.
Also note especially the following:
(a) Neutrons produced via weak interactions in ionized plasmas away from condensed matter surfaces will not necessarily be ultra low momentum. Those neutrons can have very substantial kinetic energies.
(b) In exploding wires, lightning, and solar flux tubes, high local electric fields may also occur simultaneously on surfaces of any condensed matter metallic nanoparticles that happen to be embedded in the confines of such organized tubular structures. When that is the case, the LENR physics occurring on surfaces of condensed matter particles located inside such ‘dusty’ plasmas would be essentially the same as what happens with WLT on cathode surfaces in chemical cells.
(c) As the proportion of LENRs occurring in gaseous portions of a ‘dusty’ plasma versus the proportion occurring on surfaces of embedded nanoparticles increases (where the W-L heavy surface plasmon electron gamma to infrared conversion mechanism is most effective), observed energetic gamma radiation emanating from a dusty plasma will increase accordingly. |
|
