Leif Holmlid | University of Gothenburg (original) (raw)
Papers by Leif Holmlid
The Astrophysical Journal, 2018
Particles
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) cre... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) create mesons (kaons and pions). These mesons decay mainly to muons. The muons created are useful (patented source) for the muon-induced fusion process. The sign of the muons from the source depends on the initial baryons used. With D(0) (ultra-dense deuterium) the source produces mainly positive muons and with p(0) (ultra-dense protium) the source produces mainly negative muons. Negative muons are required for muon-induced fusion. This charge asymmetry was reported earlier, and has now been confirmed by experiments with a coil current transformer as the beam detector. The current coil detector would give no signal from the muons if charge symmetry existed. The charge asymmetry could indicate unknown processes, for example, caused by the different annihilation processes in D(0) and p(0). The conclusions of a new analysis of the results are presented here. Using D(0) in the muon source, the ...
Energies
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively ... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively low kinetic energy and with high kinetic energy. The kaons have up to 100 MeV of kinetic energy, thus a velocity of 0.55 c. Each laser pulse of >0.1 J of energy and length of 5 ns produces 1013 mesons. The operation of the meson generator is here demonstrated by measuring all decay times for mesons in the ns range after induction by a pulsed laser. These decay times are the unique fingerprints of the mesons, and they also produce the kinetic energy of the mesons created from their time-dilated decay. The charged pion decay time at rest from this generator is measured to be 25.92 ± 0.04 ns (standard fit error), in reasonable agreement with the tabulated results of 26.033 ns. A similar accuracy is found for the other mesons as for the charged kaons, with 96 MeV of kinetic energy, at 14.81 ± 0.05 ns. The same general behaviour is found with both deuterium and normal hydrogen forming the ...
The comment by K. Hansen suggests that the time-of-flight mass spectrometry data in one table in ... more The comment by K. Hansen suggests that the time-of-flight mass spectrometry data in one table in our paper from 2103 in IJMS should be due to a proton contamination and correspond to protons p instead of deuterons D. The evidence for such a suggestion is a re-plotting of our data, giving a bond distance of 5.0 pm instead of 2.3 pm, corresponding to state s = 3 instead of s = 2 in the ultra-dense hydrogen. However, protium has indeed been studied on the next pages in our paper, giving shorter time-of-flights as expected. A replotting of our protium results as suggested by Hansen gives a best fit mass of 0.6 u, showing that the suggested procedure gives consistently too small mass. Hansen also rejects the rotational energy transfer model as due to our use of D in the analysis of the data. However, this model has been applied successfully in two previous publications, including experiments using protium. Hansen also suggests that the protium is due to a contamination of the source; how...
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) giv... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) give mesons (kaons and pions) which decay to muons. The process which gives the mesons is baryon annihilation (Holmlid, J. Hydrogen Energy 2021; Holmlid and Olafsson, High Energy Density Phys. 2021). The sign of the muons detected depends on the initial baryons, with D(0) in the meson source producing mainly positive muons and p(0) producing mainly negative muons. This charge asymmetry was reported in Holmlid and Olafsson (Heliyon 2019), and has been confirmed by later experiments with a coil current transformer as beam detector , also in another lab (unpublished). The current coil detector would give no signal from the muons if charge symmetry existed. The charge asymmetry of the muons seems first to be at variance with charge conservation. An analysis of the results which includes charge conservation is given here. It agrees with the standard model of particle physics. Using D(0), the asy...
The interpretation of the more than 300 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) is one of the most long... more The interpretation of the more than 300 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) is one of the most long-standing problems in interstellar spectra since the two first bands were reported in 1921. We now predict the frequencies of 260 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) using the Rydberg Matter model we have developed previously. These transitions involve mainly He atoms, but other two-electron atoms like Ca and other metals can take part in the absorption processes. Approximately 70% of the total intensity of the DIBs is due to absorption in doubly excited states and 30% in singly excited He atoms. The doubly excited states are in inverted states while the He atoms are thermal. The possibilities to observe DIBs in the UV and NIR ranges are discussed and band positions are predicted.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2021
Surface Science, 1995
The angular dependence of neutral potassium emission in the form of ground-state atoms as well as... more The angular dependence of neutral potassium emission in the form of ground-state atoms as well as Rydberg species is studied from a fused iron catalyst. The catalyst is of the type used for ammonia synthesis in so-called pre-reduced (metallic) condition. The angular distributions observed by surface ionization detection have a more peaked shape than the cosine distribution expected for thermal
arXiv: Nuclear Experiment, 2015
Laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) layers eject multi-MeV u-1 particles using ... more Laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) layers eject multi-MeV u-1 particles using ns laser pulse energies of <200 mJ. Such particles have been observed previously as mA currents to time-of-flight (TOF) collectors at up to 1 m distance. The signal current is mainly due to the ejection of secondary electrons by impinging MeV particles on the collectors. Improved two-collector time-of-flight measurements now show that the energy of the particles is in the range 1-50 MeV u-1. Their distributions are almost thermal at up to 13 MeV u-1 or are sharper than thermal. The fastest sharp peak may indicate shock-wave acceleration by many-body energy transfer. A magnetic field of 0.4 T deflects only a small part of the multi-MeV particle flux which thus mainly consists of neutral particles. By combining the TOF method with magnetic deflection, it is ascertained that the multi-MeV particles are studied and not any slower particle emission from the target. The neutral multi-MeV pa...
Background : Large-scale fusion reactors using hydrogen isotopes as fuel are still under developm... more Background : Large-scale fusion reactors using hydrogen isotopes as fuel are still under development at several places in the world. These types of fusion reactors use tritium as fuel for the T +D reaction. However, tritium is not a sustainable fuel, since it may require fission reactors for its production, and since it is a dangerous material due to its radioactivity with main risks of release to the environment during tritium production, transport and refuelling operations. Thus, widespread use of fusion relying on tritium fuel should be avoided. At least two better methods for producing the nuclear energy needed in the world using deuterium or ordinary hydrogen as fuel indeed already exist, and more need to be developed. It should be noted that the first experiments with sustained laser-driven fusion above break-even using deuterium as fuel were published already in 2015. Similar results for T+D fusion do not exist yet, which gives no confidence in this approach. Results: The wel...
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2015
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2000
The so called unidentified infrared (UIR) emission bands, observed from interstellar space for mo... more The so called unidentified infrared (UIR) emission bands, observed from interstellar space for more than 25 years, are presently believed to be due to carbonaceous material in some form, for example polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, the evidence is based on absorption data, which clearly is not adequate due to differences in the pro- cesses, for example the thermal factor. It also seems doubtful that enough carbon is available to form all the required PAHs, and that the vapor pressure is high enough to keep almost all such molecules in the gas phase. We now report on a model in which all UIR bands are due to electronic deexcitation in the condensed phase named Rydberg Matter. This type of very low- density condensed matter is formed by condensation of Rydberg states of almost any type of atom or small molecule, in space mainly hydrogen atoms and molecules. The intial formation of Rydberg states is due to desorption of alkali atoms from surfaces of small particles, es...
arXiv: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, 2010
A material exists which links together the influx of meteoritic matter from interplanetary space,... more A material exists which links together the influx of meteoritic matter from interplanetary space, the polar mesosphere summer echoes (PMSE), the sporadic sodium layers, the polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs, NLCs), and the observed ion chemistry in the mesosphere. The evidence in these research fields is here analyzed and found to agree well with the properties of Rydberg Matter (RM). This material has been studied with numerous methods in the laboratory. Alkali atoms, mainly Na, reach the mesosphere in the form of interplanetary (meteoritic, cometary) dust. The planar RM clusters NaN usually contain N = 19, 37 or 61 atoms, and have the density of air at 90 km altitude where they float. The diameters of the clusters are 10-100 nm from laboratory high precision radio frequency spectroscopic studies. Such experiments show that RM clusters interact strongly with radar frequencies: this explains the radio frequency heating and reflection studies of PMSE layers. The clusters give the low te...
EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation
The recent development of intense muon sources (Holmlid, Swedish Patent SE 539,684 C 2 (2017)) is... more The recent development of intense muon sources (Holmlid, Swedish Patent SE 539,684 C 2 (2017)) is crucial for the use of muon-catalyzed fusion reactors (L. Holmlid, Fusion Science and Technology 75, 208 (2019)) which are likely to be the first generation of practical fusion reactors. For this purpose, only negative muons are useful. For existing sources where negative muons can be ejected (if not formed) preferentially, it is necessary to know the amount of negative muons to determine and optimize the fusion reactor efficiency on-line. Here, a method is developed to measure the absolute muon flux and its average sign without collecting or deflecting the muons. The muons from the patented muon generator have an energy of 100 MeV and above and an intensity of 1013 muons per laser pulse. Here, the detection of the relativistic laser-induced muons from H(0) is reported with a standard particle beam method, using a wire coil on a ferrite toroid as detector for the relativistic particles....
The Astrophysical Journal, 2018
Particles
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) cre... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) create mesons (kaons and pions). These mesons decay mainly to muons. The muons created are useful (patented source) for the muon-induced fusion process. The sign of the muons from the source depends on the initial baryons used. With D(0) (ultra-dense deuterium) the source produces mainly positive muons and with p(0) (ultra-dense protium) the source produces mainly negative muons. Negative muons are required for muon-induced fusion. This charge asymmetry was reported earlier, and has now been confirmed by experiments with a coil current transformer as the beam detector. The current coil detector would give no signal from the muons if charge symmetry existed. The charge asymmetry could indicate unknown processes, for example, caused by the different annihilation processes in D(0) and p(0). The conclusions of a new analysis of the results are presented here. Using D(0) in the muon source, the ...
Energies
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively ... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) produce mesons with both relatively low kinetic energy and with high kinetic energy. The kaons have up to 100 MeV of kinetic energy, thus a velocity of 0.55 c. Each laser pulse of >0.1 J of energy and length of 5 ns produces 1013 mesons. The operation of the meson generator is here demonstrated by measuring all decay times for mesons in the ns range after induction by a pulsed laser. These decay times are the unique fingerprints of the mesons, and they also produce the kinetic energy of the mesons created from their time-dilated decay. The charged pion decay time at rest from this generator is measured to be 25.92 ± 0.04 ns (standard fit error), in reasonable agreement with the tabulated results of 26.033 ns. A similar accuracy is found for the other mesons as for the charged kaons, with 96 MeV of kinetic energy, at 14.81 ± 0.05 ns. The same general behaviour is found with both deuterium and normal hydrogen forming the ...
The comment by K. Hansen suggests that the time-of-flight mass spectrometry data in one table in ... more The comment by K. Hansen suggests that the time-of-flight mass spectrometry data in one table in our paper from 2103 in IJMS should be due to a proton contamination and correspond to protons p instead of deuterons D. The evidence for such a suggestion is a re-plotting of our data, giving a bond distance of 5.0 pm instead of 2.3 pm, corresponding to state s = 3 instead of s = 2 in the ultra-dense hydrogen. However, protium has indeed been studied on the next pages in our paper, giving shorter time-of-flights as expected. A replotting of our protium results as suggested by Hansen gives a best fit mass of 0.6 u, showing that the suggested procedure gives consistently too small mass. Hansen also rejects the rotational energy transfer model as due to our use of D in the analysis of the data. However, this model has been applied successfully in two previous publications, including experiments using protium. Hansen also suggests that the protium is due to a contamination of the source; how...
Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) giv... more Laser-induced nuclear reactions in ultra-dense hydrogen H(0) (review in Physica Scripta 2019) give mesons (kaons and pions) which decay to muons. The process which gives the mesons is baryon annihilation (Holmlid, J. Hydrogen Energy 2021; Holmlid and Olafsson, High Energy Density Phys. 2021). The sign of the muons detected depends on the initial baryons, with D(0) in the meson source producing mainly positive muons and p(0) producing mainly negative muons. This charge asymmetry was reported in Holmlid and Olafsson (Heliyon 2019), and has been confirmed by later experiments with a coil current transformer as beam detector , also in another lab (unpublished). The current coil detector would give no signal from the muons if charge symmetry existed. The charge asymmetry of the muons seems first to be at variance with charge conservation. An analysis of the results which includes charge conservation is given here. It agrees with the standard model of particle physics. Using D(0), the asy...
The interpretation of the more than 300 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) is one of the most long... more The interpretation of the more than 300 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) is one of the most long-standing problems in interstellar spectra since the two first bands were reported in 1921. We now predict the frequencies of 260 diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) using the Rydberg Matter model we have developed previously. These transitions involve mainly He atoms, but other two-electron atoms like Ca and other metals can take part in the absorption processes. Approximately 70% of the total intensity of the DIBs is due to absorption in doubly excited states and 30% in singly excited He atoms. The doubly excited states are in inverted states while the He atoms are thermal. The possibilities to observe DIBs in the UV and NIR ranges are discussed and band positions are predicted.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2021
Surface Science, 1995
The angular dependence of neutral potassium emission in the form of ground-state atoms as well as... more The angular dependence of neutral potassium emission in the form of ground-state atoms as well as Rydberg species is studied from a fused iron catalyst. The catalyst is of the type used for ammonia synthesis in so-called pre-reduced (metallic) condition. The angular distributions observed by surface ionization detection have a more peaked shape than the cosine distribution expected for thermal
arXiv: Nuclear Experiment, 2015
Laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) layers eject multi-MeV u-1 particles using ... more Laser-induced processes in ultra-dense deuterium D(0) layers eject multi-MeV u-1 particles using ns laser pulse energies of <200 mJ. Such particles have been observed previously as mA currents to time-of-flight (TOF) collectors at up to 1 m distance. The signal current is mainly due to the ejection of secondary electrons by impinging MeV particles on the collectors. Improved two-collector time-of-flight measurements now show that the energy of the particles is in the range 1-50 MeV u-1. Their distributions are almost thermal at up to 13 MeV u-1 or are sharper than thermal. The fastest sharp peak may indicate shock-wave acceleration by many-body energy transfer. A magnetic field of 0.4 T deflects only a small part of the multi-MeV particle flux which thus mainly consists of neutral particles. By combining the TOF method with magnetic deflection, it is ascertained that the multi-MeV particles are studied and not any slower particle emission from the target. The neutral multi-MeV pa...
Background : Large-scale fusion reactors using hydrogen isotopes as fuel are still under developm... more Background : Large-scale fusion reactors using hydrogen isotopes as fuel are still under development at several places in the world. These types of fusion reactors use tritium as fuel for the T +D reaction. However, tritium is not a sustainable fuel, since it may require fission reactors for its production, and since it is a dangerous material due to its radioactivity with main risks of release to the environment during tritium production, transport and refuelling operations. Thus, widespread use of fusion relying on tritium fuel should be avoided. At least two better methods for producing the nuclear energy needed in the world using deuterium or ordinary hydrogen as fuel indeed already exist, and more need to be developed. It should be noted that the first experiments with sustained laser-driven fusion above break-even using deuterium as fuel were published already in 2015. Similar results for T+D fusion do not exist yet, which gives no confidence in this approach. Results: The wel...
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 2015
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2000
The so called unidentified infrared (UIR) emission bands, observed from interstellar space for mo... more The so called unidentified infrared (UIR) emission bands, observed from interstellar space for more than 25 years, are presently believed to be due to carbonaceous material in some form, for example polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). However, the evidence is based on absorption data, which clearly is not adequate due to differences in the pro- cesses, for example the thermal factor. It also seems doubtful that enough carbon is available to form all the required PAHs, and that the vapor pressure is high enough to keep almost all such molecules in the gas phase. We now report on a model in which all UIR bands are due to electronic deexcitation in the condensed phase named Rydberg Matter. This type of very low- density condensed matter is formed by condensation of Rydberg states of almost any type of atom or small molecule, in space mainly hydrogen atoms and molecules. The intial formation of Rydberg states is due to desorption of alkali atoms from surfaces of small particles, es...
arXiv: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, 2010
A material exists which links together the influx of meteoritic matter from interplanetary space,... more A material exists which links together the influx of meteoritic matter from interplanetary space, the polar mesosphere summer echoes (PMSE), the sporadic sodium layers, the polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs, NLCs), and the observed ion chemistry in the mesosphere. The evidence in these research fields is here analyzed and found to agree well with the properties of Rydberg Matter (RM). This material has been studied with numerous methods in the laboratory. Alkali atoms, mainly Na, reach the mesosphere in the form of interplanetary (meteoritic, cometary) dust. The planar RM clusters NaN usually contain N = 19, 37 or 61 atoms, and have the density of air at 90 km altitude where they float. The diameters of the clusters are 10-100 nm from laboratory high precision radio frequency spectroscopic studies. Such experiments show that RM clusters interact strongly with radar frequencies: this explains the radio frequency heating and reflection studies of PMSE layers. The clusters give the low te...
EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation
The recent development of intense muon sources (Holmlid, Swedish Patent SE 539,684 C 2 (2017)) is... more The recent development of intense muon sources (Holmlid, Swedish Patent SE 539,684 C 2 (2017)) is crucial for the use of muon-catalyzed fusion reactors (L. Holmlid, Fusion Science and Technology 75, 208 (2019)) which are likely to be the first generation of practical fusion reactors. For this purpose, only negative muons are useful. For existing sources where negative muons can be ejected (if not formed) preferentially, it is necessary to know the amount of negative muons to determine and optimize the fusion reactor efficiency on-line. Here, a method is developed to measure the absolute muon flux and its average sign without collecting or deflecting the muons. The muons from the patented muon generator have an energy of 100 MeV and above and an intensity of 1013 muons per laser pulse. Here, the detection of the relativistic laser-induced muons from H(0) is reported with a standard particle beam method, using a wire coil on a ferrite toroid as detector for the relativistic particles....