From: gdpusch@NO.xnet.SPAM.com (Gordon D. Pusch)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy,sci.physics.plasma
Subject: Re: BEC & Fusion: Coherence Vs Density
Organization: XNet Information Systems (Winstar)
References: <9vqqii$3f03$1@saturn.cs.uml.edu> <a12a1b$ha2$1@saturn.cs.uml.edu>


Russell Shaw <rjshaw@iprimus.com.au> writes:

> sanman wrote:
> >
> > So people have then told me that a Bose-Einstein Condensate cannot be
> > used for fusion purposes, since it lacks the high density and high
> > kinetic energy for enough strong collisions to produce viable nuclear
> > fusion, such as with the plasma approach.
>
> I didn't find much in the google archives. Can a BEC be accelerated
> and collided?

Sure --- but there'd be no point to it, since the density of a BEC is
microscopically low, even when compared to a ``conventional'' hot fusion
plasma, and there is no reason to believe that the BEC state will enhance
the fusion cross section.

Since nuclei are about six orders of magnitude smaller than atoms,
and since the reaction cross-section is on the order of the square of
the nuclear radius, even the ``atomic'' precision facilitated by having
a macroscopic number of atoms in the same quantum state in a BEC is still
about _12 orders of magnitude too large_ compared to the precision required
to guarantee nuclear reactions...


-- Gordon D. Pusch

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