NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/2753

Text File | 1992-11-20 | 2.6 KB | 51 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!pacbell.com!tandem!zorch!fusion
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Yamaguchi and 4He
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Scott Hazen Mueller)
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Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 07:22:13 GMT
Lines: 39

I think there are still some points of confusion as to whether and to
what extent the Helium observed by Yamaguchi can be a simple contaminant.
What Jed has relayed to us is the assurance that there is "No effect for
leaking 4He through glasses."  What this clearly indicates is that
Yamaguchi still is not in touch with the ways in which glass can be a
source of the helium he is observing.  The 4He need not be coming through
the glass.  The glass itself may be a reservoir for helium.  However, this
possibility becomes academic if the quantity of helium is very large.
So how much helium is Yamaguchi finding?  Jed gives us numbers like
10^16 atoms per second and a time period of something like 10^4 seconds.
Unfortunately these two numbers don't go together.  In fact it is hard
to make much sense of the 10^16 atoms per second as being indicative
of the helium production rate.

Since this experiment is conducted in "vacuum" it is time to give Jed
a little review of what that word means.  Vacuum is any pressure below
normal atmospheric pressure with the composition of the residual gas
completely unspecified.  Whenever I hear a claim that someone has
detected helium at very high levels in a situation where deuterium
is likely to be the dominant species, a red flag goes up.  Does
Yamaguchi no what he is doing when he tries to varify the presence
of helium in a deuterium atmosphere?  If he is using a mass spec I
would like to see a listing of the partial pressures for everything
and a plot of the peaks in the region of mass 4.

If we take Yamaguchi's observations at face value, it would seem that
the dueterium experiments produce enough helium to be conmensurate with
kilojoules of nuclear energy, but that the same heating is seen with
hydrogen.  However, the hydrogen experiment produces no helium.  Of
course his measurements of the energy released are nonexistant so
there is lots of wiggle room left.  Of course one possibility is
that those 10^16 helium atoms per second were evolved along with
10^16 high energy gammas per second in a reaction that is very
inefficient at "heating".  Of course no one bothered to have a
suitable radiation detector present when this occurred.  When is
he going to get serious?

Dick Blue
NSCL @ MSU