The E-Cat and ‘Strange Radiation’

We’ve been talking a lot about ‘Strange Radiation’ on this site recently, since Bob Greenyer has been doing some very interesting reporting from the Russian LENR conference in Sochi.  It has me wondering what could the connection between the Strange Radiation and the E-Cat might be, if any.  There do seem to be some connections, although with the E-Cat, there is always a great deal that is kept confidential by Rossi.

Alexander Parkhomov has been working for a number of years to replicate the ‘Rossi Effect’ and has been reporting success in producing excess heat in nickel-hydrogen experimental system. Now we have seen from this report that in addition to the excess heat, Parkhomov’s apparatus has produced unusual tracks in materials close to his reactor which are indications of some unusual radiations. If Parkhomov is replicating the Rossi Effect, even to a small degree, it is not unreasonable to think that Rossi’s apparatus, too might be producing similar radiations.

Rossi himself does not deny that the E-Cat produces radiations of some kind. In fact he admits it. Just recently he made these comments on the Journal of Nuclear Physics:

Szymon Blachuta
October 6, 2018 at 4:32 AM
Dear Andrea Rossi,
in your patent (US 9,115,913 B1) there is a mention of radiation shield.
Does the reaction emit some radiation?
If no, as you mentioned earlier, why radiation shield in the apparatus?
Thanks for answer.
My best to you and your Team.
Kind Regards,
Szymon

Andrea Rossi
October 6, 2018 at 4:52 AM
Szymon Blachuta:
Good question.
You must make a distinction between reaction and reactor. I said the reactor does not emit radiations beyond the margin of error of the measurement system.
Thank you for your kind wishes,
Warm Regards,
A.R.

And Rossi has also stated that “the radiations inside the Ecat are thermalized.” Beyond this, typically, he hasn’t said a great deal about what happens inside the E-Cat.

Recently, however, Rossi has referred to a couple of papers that he indicates are connected to his effect. The first one we have mentioned here already: “Electron Structure, Ultra-Dense Hydrogen and Low Energy Nuclear Reactions”, by Antonino Oscar Di Tommaso and Giorgio Vassallo.

In this paper, the authors make a case that ultra-dense hydrogen particles, while being electrically neutral, can create a long range magnetic field which allows for the overcoming of the Coulomb barrier, and the creation of magnetic force. They write:

The three “miracles” required by the low-energy nuclear reactions could therefore find, for example, in the reaction (22) a possible explanation:

1.Overcoming the Coulomb barrier: the ultra-heavy hydrogen particles are electrically neutral;

2.No neutrons are emitted: the reactions products of (22) and (23)consist exclusively of helium nuclei and an electron;

3.Absence of penetrating gamma radiation: the energy produced is manifested as kinetic energy of the reaction products and as X-ray emission from bremsstrahlung.

Interestingly, Di Tommaso and Vassallo also cite the work of Kenneth Shoulders and Hal Puthoff who wrote: “Laboratory observation of high-density filamentation or clustering of electronic charge suggests that under certain conditions strong coulomb repulsion can be overcome by cohesive forces as yet imprecisely defined.”

In another comment on the Journal of Nuclear Physics, Andrea Rossi directly cites the work of Hal Puthoff:

Andrea Rossi

Kim:
the possibility that as a consequence of the Aharonov-Bohm effect , a rapid, collective and simultaneous variation of the Zitterbewegung phase catalyzes the creation of coherent systems like those described by H.E. Puthoff ( Charge Confinement by Casimir Forces, arXiv:physics/0408114, 2004 ): laboratory observation of high-density filamentation or clustering of electronic charge suggests that under certain conditions strong Coulomb repulsion can be overcome by cohesive forces as yet imprecisely defined.
This could catalize the formation of virtual particles and antiparticles with the same temperature of the core of the Ecat reactors and the subsequent annihilation that, with such masses, cannot generate high energy ionizing radiations.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

This is referenced Puthoff paper: “Charge confinement by Casimir forces” H. E. Puthoff, M. A. Piestrup https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408114 In this paper, the authors conclude:

Laboratory observation of high-density filamentation or clustering of electronic charge has motivated an investigation into potential cohesive mechanisms whereby repulsive coulomb forces could be overcome by some form of compensatory force of attraction. Of the various possibilities discussed in the literature, we have chosen to examine a model suggested by Casimir that invokes the possibility of charge confinement by Casimir forces. The resulting analysis indicates that the cooperative action of large numbers of charges by Casimir-type effects does provide a potential candidate for charge confinement of roughly the right order of magnitude to correlate with reported laboratory observations.

It makes me wonder whether the “clustering of electronic charge” referred to here could be synonymous with “strange radiation”, and whether Rossi is now thinking along those same lines as he seeks to understand the effect in the E-Cat. Maybe there is here some convergence in thinking among researchers seeking to understand LENR phenomena.