Rydberg Atoms/Rydberg matter

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Rydberg matter

This resource is starting informally, and may be more about scientific process and status rather than the science involved. Rydberg matter itself appears to be a reasonably accepted concept, but the reports of ultradense deuterium have not been confirmed, yet there is experimental evidence that appears reasonable, on the face. That is, the measurements as reported indicate the existence of an extremely dense state of matter with hydrogen or deuterium, with interatomic separation at 2.3 pm.

That is close enough that under some conditions, fusion may occur, and, in fact, fusion products are being reported from this dense state. Because the temperature of the material is low, this is being connected by some with cold fusion, but, in fact, the mechanism here must be quite different from cold fusion, because hot fusion products are being reported, which are not seen with the known cold fusion, i.e., the Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect does not produce these products, only helium (as to major products, tritium is seen, but at levels a million times down from helium).

There has been no independent confirmation of the basic evidence for this highly dense state of Rydberg matter.

There are many papers with Leif Holmlid, who has been studying Rydberg atoms and matter since the 1980s, as author or co-author. He appears to be considered a competent researcher, and peer-reviewed mainstream journals are regularly publishing his work.

It seems that the state called h(1) or d(1), with hydrogen or deuterium, is not particularly controversial. However, he has reported what was initially called h(-1) or d(-1), with that 2.3 pm separation. It is now called h(0) or d(0).

His findings are little short of astonishing, and there could be major implications. If the matter he appears to be creating in the lab can be created regularly, it would make an excellent target for Inertial confinement fusion. His reports of fusion are from laser stimulation of the material, he infers that the stimulation causes a collapse to an even higher density where fusion takes place "spontaneously." If that collapse occurs, it is not controversial that fusion at high rate would be spontaneous.

What is remarkable is that the initial findings of the "ultra-dense" state now labeled as state 0 have not been confirmed, even though the work was done years ago. The experimental procedure does not seem to be beyond what graduate students would ordinarily be able to use, with appropriate equipment, which is not rare. There are no published negative replications or failed replications.

Holmlid, then, has continued to publish a great deal of material founded on his conclusion of state (0).

The foundational paper for "ultradense deuterium": High-energy Coulomb explosions in ultra-dense deuterium: Time-of-flight-mass spectrometry with variable energy and flight length

The abstract:
 * High-density hydrogen is of great interest both as a fuel with the highest energy content of any combustion fuel, and as a target material for laser initiated inertial confinement fusion (ICF) [S. Badiei, L. Holmlid, J. Fusion Energ. 27 (2008) 296]. A much denser deuterium material named D(−1) can be observed by pulsed laser induced Coulomb explosions giving a well-defined, high kinetic energy release (KER). Neutral time-of-flight of the fragments from the material shows that the Coulomb explosions have a KER of 630 eV [S. Badiei, P.U. Andersson, L. Holmlid, Int. J. Hydrogen Energ. 34 (2009) 487]. By using ion time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) with variable acceleration voltages and a few different values of laser pulse power, we now prove the mass and charge of the particles as well as the KER. In fact, the ions are so fast that they must be H+, D+ or T+. By using two different flight lengths, we prove with certainty that the spectra are due to D+ ions and not to photons or electromagnetic effects. The results also establish the fragmentation patterns of the ultra-dense D(−1) material in the electric field. The energy release of 630 ± 30 eV corresponds to an interatomic distance D–D of 2.3 ± 0.1 pm. This material is probably an inverted metal with the deuterons moving in the field from the stationary electrons, which gives a predicted interatomic distance of 2.5 pm, close to the measured value. Thus, we prove that an ultra-dense deuterium material exists.

I have a problem with the usage of "proved" in papers that raise an interpretation of results as being proven. "Proof" is actually a social phenomenon. Aside from the social phenomenon, there is "evidence." Holmlid has definitely reported evidence that indicates that high density hydrogen/deuterium exists. However, his papers then proceed to treat the prior result as "proven," yet I have found no evidence that the evidence has been independently confirmed, which would be the start of the process of social proof.

Why not? Have there been any attempts to confirm the result? If so, they have not been published, to my knowledge. There is a reluctance, I suspect, to publish negative results, because they could indicate incompetence on the part of the researcher who fails to reproduce. Much better, in fact, is also much more rare: actual confirmation of the results with, then, evidence that the result is artifact. Merely negative replication is useful, if reported, indicating that if the results are real, they are difficult to obtain. This will, examined with care, point up experimental necessities that are not necessarily shown in an original report.

There is a huge history regarding this with cold fusion. There were many negative replications, but the only one of these efforts, that I know of, that even approached an identification of artifact, was the Cal Tech work that found an apparent heat anomaly in cells due to failure to stir. That was thought to be important, but, in fact, their cell design was different from that of the original researchers, Pons and Fleischmann, and their design was vulnerable to this calorimetric error. It appears that the Pons and Fleischmann design was not, being narrow and well-stirred by gas evolution. Further, we now know why the original replication efforts failed, and this is well covered in a recent Current Science article by Michael McKubre.
 * The effect was difficult to set up, under the best of conditions, and took months of electrolysis to cause the apparently necessary changes to the material. The reported negative replication efforts extended over weeks, not months.
 * A loading ratio of well over 80% was needed, and the negative replications did not attain more than 70% at best.

However, with this report of ultradense Rydberg matter, there is no indication of efforts to replicate independently. If the work is difficult, if there are unreported details, replication may require communication with an original worker; however, then, even if an original report has the original worker as co-author, the next step would be fully-independent replication.

What's needed
The history of cold fusion provides lessons that could apply to this discovery. It was most urgent in 1989 to confirm or disconfirm the original report of anomalous heat from Pons and Fleischmann. The U.S. Department of Energy began funding investigations, apparently, and the rumor is that for a short time, half the U.S. discretionary research budget was being spent on this. That was excessive for a single report. There were political forces behind this, a need to quickly answer the basic question: is cold fusion possible? If so, the huge hot fusion research program might be at risk.

However, this created a rush to judgment. It is very clear that the early negative replications were actually failures to replicate, i.e., the conditions of the original work were not created.

Mike McKubre has written that when Pons and Fleischmann made their announcement, he knew that, because palladium deuteride had been well-studied in the real of loading up to about 70%, the previously unobserved phenomena must be at loading above that level. However, the well-known negative replications didn't reach above that. Indeed, it was not well-known how to do this, and the first reports from Pons and Fleischmann were sketchy. Major replication efforts were armed with few details and so rested on assumptions that didn't work.

With hindsight, I can say that the highest priority should have been on confirming or disconfirming the basic finding. The original report mentioned gamma and neutron radiation. That was artifact, but even in the original report, it was acknowledged that the levels were so low, compared to what would be expected from classic fusion reactions, that the main process must be something other than the classic reaction. While Pons reported helium as a product, based on a mass spectrogram done at the end of 1988, this was so mysterious that they backed off and de-emphasized helium, leaving no known candidate for the ash consistent with the experimental results.

It was not until 1991 that Miles announced that he had measured helium correlated with heat, and at a ratio "within an order of magnitude" of the level expected if the reaction was the conversion of deuterium to helium (that imprecision being due to difficulties in that work, later work tightened it up, so that it is still said that the helium is "commensurate with the heat"). It was, again, not for some years before Miles was confirmed, and confirmations, typically, were not exact replications, and the lack of exact replication dogged the field. Everyone was trying to figure out how to do it better.

So here we have an astonishing experimental result. Forget about fusion for a moment! We have a report of matter at low temperature, and at a density that is far beyond any other reported matter under those conditions. Stellar interiors may not reach this density. And the experimental approach seems fairly simple.

It may not be simple. That is part of what replication efforts would address. There is, however, no sign of such efforts. Rather, Holmlid et al continue to investigate the material, building on a foundation that is entirely dependent on their first report. If we don't believe there is ultradense deuterium, we are not going to believe that fusion products are being seen in it.

(That's not entirely true. If the fusion products are seen at sufficient levels, if the identification is sufficiently clear, this actually could be an independent discovery of high interest, even if the material were not as dense as claimed. On the other hand, it is supporting evidence for such high density, because that is a possible explanation of the fusion results.)

I would consider it of high priority, then, to encourage scientists to study this Rydberg matter and to replicate, attempting to confirm or disconfirm.

As well, I encourage those with high theoretical knowledge and skill to study the papers and criticize them.

It is not a satisfactory situation for this level of publication to continue without serious critique. The only critique I have seen has been from internet bloggers and Wikipedia editors who clearly did not understand the claims. The only positive review that I've seen of weight has been Winterberg. There is what appears to be an arXiv preprint of one article at http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0912/0912.5414.pdf. Winterberg has this as his conclusion:


 * If as reported the state of ultradense deuterium exists, and if it is sufficiently stable to exist long enough, it could become for the release of nuclear energy as important as was the discovery of nuclear fission by Hahn and Strassmann. It is the purpose of this note that on purely theoretical grounds an ultradense state of deuterium cannot be easily dismissed.

So ... it cannot be "easily dismissed" as impossible, and impossibility arguments are what is seen in Wikipedia and other non-refereed commentary on ultra-dense deuterium.

On the other hand, that something might be possible does not mean that it happens. Does it happen?

Critique
My own critique of this work is mild. This is the latest paper I have seen:
 * Muon detection studied by pulse-height energy analysis: Novel converter arrangements, Leif Holmlid and Sveinn Olafsson, AIP Review of Scientific Instruments, Volume 86, Issue 8, August 2015.

This will be examined on the subpage, /Muons.

/Wikipedia
The subpage examines the history of Rydberg matter material on Wikipedia.