[NewCandle] further adventures of pixie 23

[Horace Heffner]

On Nov 15, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Nick Reiter wrote:


>  The liquid in the bucket at a couple of cm spacing was a decent  
> isotropic 200 to 300cpm.

So the liquid appears to be essentially unchanged.


>
> I allowed the rolls to dry out overnight.  This morning, I looked  
> at a few (there are six for a pixie bucket).  Now keep in mind that  
> the one end of a roll is sawed off, and thus the turns are crushed  
> and "swaged" over from the saw blade.  So effectively, there is an  
> open end and a sort-of closed end to each roll.
>
> At 1cm spacing from any position at the roll OD side, I saw 2000 to  
> 3000cpm.  At the sawed end, the reading was nearly the same.   
> However, at the "open end" where one still sees the (now slightly  
> swollen) turns of foil, we get a reading of around 10,000cpm.  If  
> one turned on one's "gamma vision" it would be like a flashlight  
> with a stubby beam, I guess.
>
> I took multiple wraps of Al foil and placed them around the mica  
> window of the GM tube.  Essentially no attenuation of any reading  
> anywhere, until one gets to 4 turns or wraps, at which point there  
> may have been a very slight dropoff - no more than maybe 10%.
>
> Thus I have to say that all of these fun and games are gamma or  
> strong Xray.  Beta component seems negligible.

Not so with such energetic betas. See:

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~scdiroff/lds/QuantumRelativity/ 
PenetrationandShielding/PenetrationandShielding.html

http://tinyurl.com/2gbqcd


"A useful rule-of-thumb for the maximum range of electrons is that  
the range (in gm/cm2) is half the maximum energy (in Mev)."  A 2.3  
MeV beta has a 4.2 mm path in Al and 11 mm path in H2O.

Again, I would suggest neutron activation:

   27Al + n -> 28 Al -> (2.25m hl) 28Mg + beta + 4.624 MeV

   28Mg -> (21 h hl) 28Na + beta + 1.83 MeV

   28Na -> (30.5 ms) 28Ne + beta + 13.9 MeV

but also my CRC shows this branch:

   28Na -> (30.5 ms) 27Ne + beta + n + 2.389 MeV gamma + energy

which has an 11.9% probability, and which has the potential to  
increase the neutron flux. It also drags out the decay time, because  
12 percent of the neutrons generate more neutrons about 21 hours  
later.   The gammas have the potential to generate more neutrons  
right off from spallation.

When you pull the foil out of the water the geiger counter can pick  
up the extra betas. That might be verified with different thickness  
screens, i.e. with different beta path lengths.

However, those betas have a long path length, plus can generate high  
energy x-rays.

What has me curious is the *decline* in counts over a couple days  
(see clip from your post of Oct 27, appended below).  This indicates  
to me the possible consumption of an isotope, possibly deuterium, or  
a trace isotope in the foil.   The fact the top open end of the foil  
has more activation indicates the deuterium is being consumed there  
as it diffuses in between the foil.  There is an initial jump in  
count as the foil is immersed, but after that the deuterium has to  
enter the foil spaces by diffusion.  Somehow the deuterium  
consumption increases the foil activations.  This vaguely reminds me  
of some aluminum results obtained in India, I think by plasma  
bombardment of Al with D2. The radiation was long lasting, not just  
due to neutron activation, and resulted in very spectacular  
autoradigraphs, and I think assumed to be due to tritium creation,  
which does not match your results.

In any case, just basic neutron activation cannot account for your  
results because there is a decline that occurs over a couple days.    
This is to me is a clear indication of a consumable, and one in the  
solution.

Too bad there was no control, one with no D2O.  I suppose the easiest/ 
cheapest test from here would be to add more D2O to the existing  
experiment and see what happens.

If the results you obtained were due to DHO consumption, given such a  
small quantity, then this is an astoundingly robust process.  Use of  
shielding is highly indicated!

I should note that I have upgraded my article on CF nuclear  
reactions, and included footnotes:

http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf


Quote of post indicating possible isotope consumption:


On Oct 27, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Nick Reiter wrote:

> So I began inserting the foil rolls, standing them upright.
>
> As I did so, and noted that the solution was wicking up into the  
> rolls and displacing air in fine bubbles, I observed that the  
> Geiger counter reading began to climb, and stabilized at about 600CPM.
>
> This is the opposite of what I expected - I figured that the mass  
> of aluminum foil would slightly attenuate the CPM on the counter.
>
> Would anyone care to chime in and tell me exactly what artifact I  
> am seeing here?  I have to start by presuming it IS one, of  
> course.  But it is also curious.
>
> Now over the course of the past few days, there HAS been some drift  
> in the CPM - first a little higher, then a little lower, and now  
> back down to around 400 cpm.  Something does seem to be changing,  
> either in the Al to oxide ratio, or due to the hydrolysis bubbling.

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/