User:Abd/cf/existence

Please prove to me that Cold Fusion as you envision it can exist.

I (Abd) do not have a "theory of cold fusion." Rather, "cold fusion" is a popular term for a phenomenon more neutrally called the "Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect." As a result of further research, accumulated for decades now, it is reasonably known that the FPHE, originally ascribed to an "unknown nuclear reaction," is the result of a transformation of deuterium to helium, but the mechanism is still unknown. There are theories sometimes considered plausible, but none have been adequately elaborated or tested, beyond the basic theory of "dueterium fusion to helium," without specifying "fusion" beyond being the name for a process of unspecified mechanism that takes a lower-Z element and releases energy by putting it together in some way to make a higher-Z element.

The evidence has been gathered and published in a reliable source. It is possible that the requestor will need some explanations, but let me present the evidence that this has been done and see what questions arise.

It is not merely that cold fusion is "possible." That would be a theoretical argument. It actually exists, as demonstrated by experiment, not by theory. There is a theoretical approach (Takahashi) that predicts fusion in the solid state, under certain narrow conditions, from quantum field theory, that might turn out to be related to the actual reaction, but this is unconfirmed, speculative. It's covered a little in the review below.

Edmund Storms, "Status of cold fusion (2010)", Naturwissenschaften, October, 2010. Preprint for convenience.

The key phrase from the abstract:


 * The evidence supports the claim that a nuclear reaction between deuterons to produce helium can occur in special materials without application of high energy.

That is a conservative statement. The evidence is massive, it's highly unlikely that artifact will be found that can explain it, coming from hundreds of research groups (a dozen in the case of the heat/helium finding), and the conclusion of fusion, as a default judgment, is obvious from the evidence.