Talk:Stars/Surface fusion

Planetary science

Marshall, the organization of this resource is a puzzle. You have a section, Stellar_surface_fusion#Planetary_science which doesn't seem to have anything to do with planetary science.

It looks like you have used this page -- and I think I've seen others like this -- to collect research notes on wide-ranging subjects. Much of the material on the page has little, if anything, to do with stellar surface fusion. The material in the planetary science section is about work to create extremely high-Z nuclei through "cold fusion" of heavy nuclei, well below normal fusion energies (but still very hot). These are not the conditions of stellar atmospheres (and the superheavy nuclei formed are very, very short-lived, it's just that if they are formed "cold," they last a bit longer so they can be detected.)

The assertion you quote that the bulk of the sun's fusion occurs near the surface is surprising, and undeveloped. Evidence that fusion occurs in flares and the like does not show that the bulk occurs there, because the density is so much lower, and in the core, the density and energy are both very high. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 02:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments!

Actually, element number 111, Roentgenium, has isotopes with half-lives on the order of 10⁸ years, and I will be adding this to the planetary science section along with their detection and removal as naturally occurring in five nines gold from Earth. While some could argue that 250 MeV acceleration of Fe, Co, and Ni ions may not occur in coronal loops. It also may be possible. The sources stating where the fusion seems to be occurring are reflecting experimental results that can only be explained by fusion occurring outside the interior of the Sun. Bahcall also published a letter to the Astrophysical Journal where he and coworkers at the Homestake mine found a 94% correlation betweeen neutrino detections and the sunspot cycle. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 10:45, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not debating the possibility of surface or circumsurface fusion, but the rate is an issue. The neutrino evidence is interesting, and I'd welcome more detailed study of it. What you wrote about Roentgenium doesn't match what I find, the longest known half-life is 26 seconds. You imply not just one very long-lived isotope but more than one.

I'm generally suspicious of "can only be explained." For any set of facts, there will be a universe of explanations, given enough time to develop them. Some of these may be Rube Goldberg complex and thus we consider them unlikely, but ... what are the facts about "fusion reactions outside the interior"? That is, the experimental results to be explained, have they been confirmed, etc.?

You may know that I accept low-energy nuclear reactions, specifically some kind of fusion, as likely, very likely, and I can point to the specific experimental evidence, which has been confirmed and is likewise difficult to explain absent unexpected nuclear reactions. It's called "cold fusion," though it's a very different animal than the "cold fusion" in the high-Z experiments you wrote about. It doesn't seem to happen outside of condensed matter, it is even possible that it only occurs near absolute zero, under very specific conditions of confinement. In this case, "absolute zero" refers only to the relative momentum of "two molecules." So it will occur with a certain frequency at room temperature. But that's just one theory, there are many, to attempt to explain "cold fusion."

The resource appears to be a collection of research notes, connected in your mind. Let me encourage you to develop it as an expression and study, pushing less relevant material to a subpage, and connecting the dots for what remains.

As to sunspot cycles and neutrino flux, there is an alternate explanation. What if sunspot cycles are a reflection of some process taking place much deeper in the Sun? I.e., both neutrino flux and sunspot activity may have a common cause. Neutrino flux is expected from fusion, but for it to correlate with an apparent surface phenomenon does not show that the fusion is taking place at the surface. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again for your comments! Let me add at the outset that to my knowledge there is zero experimental evidence that neutrinos come from the core of the Sun. Unless a careful error analysis is applied that I am considering none of the neutrino detectors can differentiate the core of the Sun from a fusion shell above the photosphere. As I am trying to get this lecture prepared before the class deadline, I am going to try to incorporate more information to address some of your concerns rather than alter the lecture's format. Part of this lecture and the course's intent is to open alternative doors for consideration. So first here's an organization of your topics that is helping:

1. Planetary science - I've added the intended section, although additional references are available.
2. bulk of the sun's fusion - no one knows! I'm adding more material in respective sections to address rate and other matters.
3. neutrino flux and sunspot activity - no internal mechanism as yet has come close to handling this, not that perhaps they can't, and yes the sunspot cycles and neutrino activity already have a common cause and at least one explanation does not need a deep-seated interior process.
4. fusion taking place at the surface - technically in the atmosphere above the surface, of course, and I'm adding more information that demonstrates that fusion is occurring at the surface.
5. rate of fusion - the formal, direct connection of neutrino production rate versus what is happening just above the surface has not been presented, but please keep in mind that to my knowledge Bahcall's standard solar model for neutrino production somewhere at the Sun originated more with accelerator fusion, not high-temperature, high-pressure fusion which I believe has only been demonstrated in very limited ways and not in any sustained way.

Looking forward to your input. Your comments have been very helpful so far. Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 18:01, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

As far as I understand, there is no experimental evidence that the neutrino source is located in any particular region of the Sun. There isn't the kind of directional accuracy with neutrino measurements, if I'm correct, to be able to distinguish the two. An orbiting observatory close to the Sun might be able to do it. Is there one with the capability? Last I looked, to detect neutrinos at all took massive tanks of detector liquid.

The reason why core production is expected and perhaps assumed is classical fusion theory. That is, copious neutrino production is anticipated from expected reactions under conditions of high temperature and pressure in the solar plasma. Reactions are not expected to occur at high rate from the much lower bulk temperature and pressure of the surface.

It's always a rate question. When Pons and Fleischmann reported an "unknown nuclear reaction" in a condensed matter experiment, this was quickly translated to "d-d fusion" and then it was said that this was impossible. In fact, theory never made it impossible, it merely made the expected rate be very, very low. And the rate for that reaction may indeed be as low -- or almost as low -- as predicted. Cold fusion is something else. I love the "unknown," it is where all major progress originates. We err when we assume comprehensive knowledge, we may have theories that are extremely capable of making predictions of high accuracy under some conditions. Those theories may fail completely under other conditions, even if those other conditions are rare. Theories of impossibility are often theories based on assumptions of comprehensive knowledge, and flat out, we don't know everything.

What is accurate about neutrinos and sunspots, if I'm correct -- correct me if I'm not -- is that a correlation has been shown between them. That normally indicates causal relation, i.e., one causes the other or they have a common cause. How I read your first comments on this was that sunspots were assumed to be the cause, or the necessary site for neutrino production. Given the unlikelihood of this (from considerations of temperature and pressure), that's not where I'd first look. I'd look, instead, to something causing variations in neutrino production rate, i.e, likely in the balance of fusion reactions taking place, and this variation then causing sunspot incidence to vary.

But those are heuristic decisions. They are not absolute, by any means. What is, or seems to be, most likely, is simply a guide to where, from our experience, we will find answers.

For these reasons, I'd consider neutrino evidence to be quite weak as to being evidence for surface fusion reactions. There would be other, clearer evidence, I assume. Is there?

You did not respond on the issue of Roentgenium. What did you have in mind? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Did you have a chance to look at the addition to the section on planetary science? Naturally occurring Rg has been found and chemically isolated and identified in natural gold. Even accelerator produced Rg can have a half life of 10⁷ seconds.

It isn't that the sunspots are the cause of neutrinos only that sunspot numbers fluctuate with the solar cycle. Solar minimum has few to zero sunspots, while solar maximum has the largest number. Although coronal loops occur throughout the cycle, even at minimum, their numbers and intensity also increase in direct correlation with sunspot numbers. A causal factor for all three is what Bahcall recorded but did not identify. The same can be said of solar flares which have been shown to produce quite a variety of isotopes through fusion. These occur independent of the cycle but their numbers and intensity also correlate directly with sunspot numbers. Here again a causal factor exists for all four.

The evidence for surface fusion reactions especially associated with solar flares is extensive over almost half a century. I've put some into the lecture and since I haven't exceeded 100 kb yet I'll add some more. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:09, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

By all means, use subpages to handle detail, with summary style on the mainspace page. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I did look, I was researching and writing what is in its own section below. I saw nothing that would support your claim that "accelerator produced Rg can have [such a long half-life]." All accelerator-produced Rg has high atomic mass and a half-life not exceeding 26 seconds for the most long-lived.

I consider it quite possible that Marinov has found something of high interest, but also that there is some unidentified artifact. In the cold fusion field, there are quite a few reports of high interest that have never been verified (nor disconfirmed) in spite of being relatively simple, one would think. There is very little funding. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:41, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

• I still don't know why the section is titled "Planetary science." No tie-in seems to be made to what I'd think of as planetary science. Yes, if there are superheavy elements occurring naturally, there must be some process that creates them, but that's a huge and broad inference, it doesn't point to surface fusion. Most of the universe, by far, is not "stellar surface," and most of the mass is not found there, either, and there are vast possibilities. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:47, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Roentgenium

Here is a decent secondary source review of the Marinov work on Roentgenium in gold, which I see you have cited. They give credence to the work while looking forward to confirmation. It explains the work better than the Marinov paper, I'd say

I still don't see what this has to do with stellar surface fusion.

There is a relationship between the nuclear isomer theory of Marinov, i.e., the possible existence of a nuclear isomer that would have a long half-life, and some cold fusion theory. Takahashi has calculated a 100% fusion cross-section from a particular 4-deuteron configuration, if it collapses as a condensate (presumably due to very low relative momentum between two molecules, and that condition requires very unusual confinement, it would not happen with pure deuterium, they cannot approach closely enough). The problem is that this would be expected to produce Beryllium-8, with a half-life of a femtosecond or so. That is not enough time for the energy to be radiated through a series of low energy photon emissions from nuclear excited state transitions, so the result would be very hot alphas or other highly energetic radiation, which is not observed, only helium and heat are observed. So he is looking at possible halo states that might extend the lifetime of Be-8. These halo states would not be formed in ordinary not fusion, it's too "messy."

So if Marinov is right and there is not some unanticipated nuclear combination producing his mass signal, the we may think that something about the formation of the Rg allowed it to be formed in a long-life nuclear isomer, rather than in the ground state that is known to decay quickly.

If Marinov is right, again, it should be possible to confirm his work and to eliminate possible artifacts. He found, with a single enrichment step, an apparent abundance of 2 x 10^-6 of Rg-261 in the gold. It should be possible, with this result, to repeat the enrichment, creating successively more enriched Rg. The gold is not damaged, what evaporates would presumably be recoverable, becoming "Rg depleted gold." In this way, macroscopic amounts of Rg-269 should be accumulatable, and chemistry studied. If it is stable, samples of Rg enriched gold should be independently studied.

In any case, googling "Roentgenium 261" popped up quite a few references in WP:RS publications, so that this news (of the claim) isn't in the Wikipedia article on Roentgenium is surprising. w:Talk:Roentgenium/Archive_1#New_discovery_of_natural_Rg_by_Marinov shows two attempts to add the material. I see all these face-palm discussions. Is MIT Technlogy Review a blog? No. However, it looks like they were operating a blog. It appears however, that there was a 2010 editorial or "view." Unsigned. That means it's the publication itself speaking, with opinion. It establishes, as a source, notability. The "cabal" consistently acts to exclude what is clearly fact, and clearly notable, if it is not "mainstream opinion." They will include whatever opinion can be found from weak sources if it is their opinion. With a serious anti-fringe target, w:cold fusion, information from a relatively recent (2010) peer-reviewed review of the field in a mainstream peer-reviewed publication is excluded, while very old and utterly obsolete information from much weaker sources is included. And the same argument is advanced, "if it was true, it would be in Nature or Science."

(I just looked. Yes, the Storms review ("Status of cold fusion (2010)," Naturwissenschaften, is still in the bibliography. In 2010, I went to the Reliable Source noticeboard because editors were claiming that wasn't reliable source. After all, "fringe author." (There isn't any such thing, RS depends on the publisher.) Yes, was the noticeboard conclusion, reliable source. Like, duh! I was almost immediately topic banned. All attempts to quote or use what was in that review were quickly reverted. The abstract is quoted as the lede for our Cold fusion resource. Attempts to link to Wikiversity as a "sister wiki" were reverted, arguing that it was "self-published." Yet sister wiki links are normal procedure. Etc. Etc. Instead, among many examples, the lede is highly misleading. For example, the 2004 U.S. DoE review was quite positive compared with the 1989. What was similar was only the conclusion of no major funding, but both reviews actually encouraged further research and modest funding. In 1989 that was forced by the co-chair threatening to resign if the pseudoskeptical conclusions of the other co-chair, and the panel majority, prevailed. Being a Nobel Prize winner probably helped. In 2004, it was reported as a genuine consensus. At various times, attempts were made to add balancing information from the 2004 review, always reverted. And then I see this, it has long been there: Since cold fusion articles are rarely published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, the results do not receive as much scrutiny as more mainstream topics.[14]) That's in the lede, and should be the strongest information in the article. It should not be necessary to have in-line citations in a lede, the article itself should fully support it.

The statement is not merely poorly sourced, it is false. There has been a continual flow of cold fusion articles in mainstream peer-reviewed publications. It slowed greatly, but turned up around 2004. The note cites two publications, Goodstein from 1994, and a period when there was *high* attention (~>100 per year) in peer-reviewed publications, and I think it was just an offhand comment by Goodstein, who has written much on both sides of the issue, and the other was a paper I don't have, but which appears to be about something else. It's clear that cold fusion results are not noticed as much, because there are still many scientists who think the whole thing was shown to be bogus over twenty years ago, it's a classic example of the formation of a "scientific consensus" without there ever having been a definitive demonstration, in this case of bogosity.

Facts are selected and put together to create an impression by ... a dominant group, eh?

The editors trying to insert the information about Marinov had no clue how to do it. They were faced with editors with long experience, well-connected, who were not about to help them. I understand the frustration of that editor, he knew that what he was trying to put in the article was "true," because the truth of it was obvious. I.e., a claim is being made. He had no concept of the actual problem, that of notability. So instead of addressing notability, he just disappeared, as have many. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 21:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Hot neutrons

From the Neutrons section: "~100 MeV to ~2 GeV." "300 MeV-3.5 GeV." What could be producing such hot neutrons at or near the surface of the sun? Any clue?

I added a link to the paper itself, since full text is available.[1]

Okay, fhot protons (i.e, hot, vhot for very hot, and fhot for friggin' hot). There will be high fusion rates with much cooler protons. I'd think that such hot protons would be produced by accelerating voltages in the same range. Again, what would create such high voltages? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm far from having all the answers but here's a couple of clues:

1. energy of electrons coming into the solar system from the interstellar medium is on the order of 700 MeV,
2. the only real, albeit empirical, theory to explain the production of solar flares is intense, vertical electron bombardment of the chromosphere from above, approximately radially, presumably from coronal loops, and
3. coronal loops appear to originate from the chromosphere, maybe like a flare, rise into the corona and return downward, after looping, with sometimes incredible energies.

There are also nanoflares, from electron bombardment, that may be occurring all over the chromosphere induced by electron bombardment from above. As far as I know there is no known way that magnetic reconnection or any other intrasolar mechanism can produce these effects. It's also what's heating the solar corona to MeV levels. The rarified plasma of the corona, or coronal clouds, is likely also coming from these incoming 700 MeV electrons concentrating toward the Sun.

A GV produces a GeV to an electron or proton, electrons move faster because of their smaller mass. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)