At 04:03 PM 12/11/2009, [email protected] wrote:
In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:57:08 -0500:
Hi,
[snip]
>off. But then, wouldn't we expect some really hot alphas?
How do you know that there are no really hot alphas? Even really hot ones only
have a travel distance of microns in solids and liquids. Hence the need to use
detectors such as CR-39. I think that much of the lore regarding the
absence of
alphas comes from the early days of CF research before CR-39 etc.
was employed.
Well, I've said this myself. However, the penetration of very hot
(i.e., 23.8 MeV) alphas would be more than seems to be the case with
what is being observed. It's not clear to me that what is being
observed is alpha radiation at all, but that's a complicated issue.
Hot alphas will also cause secondary reactions, and if they were the
predominant product, we'd expect more of these effects. In any case,
the idea of putting some beryllium into the cathode structure is to
test for alpha radiation....
But seat of the pants estimates aren't really enough. We need more
data and better analysis.
