🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <24761@dog.ee.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.172715.3167@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>, crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes...
>>In article <92203.121247CCB104@psuvm.psu.edu> <CCB104@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>For want of a sponsor or potential "licensee," an official "Invention
>>>Disclosure" outlining an unconventional method of forcibly changing
>> 
>>    What would be the 'conventional method'?  Acceleration to high
>>    energy?
>
>As you know, that would not change the decay rate in the nucleus' rest
>frame.  There is however a way to modify some decay rates, though most
>people don't realize it because they are incorrectly taught that nothing
>environmental can affect the decay rate of a radioactive nucleus.
>
>For nuclei which decay by K capture, the decay rate is sensitive to the
>electronic structure of the atom.  This is obvious, because any capture
>matrix element will have to include the electron's wave function.  So if
>you take such an atom and bind it in a molecule so that it's electronic
>orbitals are perturbed, you affect the decay rate of the nucleus.
>
>You can look up the details in Segre's book _Nuclei and Particles_.  The
>effect has been experimentally verified.  Although I don't know if it has
>ever been done, you can easily imagine that very high pressures will also
>change the decay rate of a solid lump of such an element, for the same 
>reasons.

     Absolutely, and good point.  Another of my thoughts was that an
     appropriate sample placed in a stream of neutrons has altered activity.
     This all underscores the importance of the poster telling
     us exactly what he is talking about in order to arouse some
     real interest.

>I can also imagine that putting a nucleus which is gamma unstable between
>two plates, ala Casimir, would affect the decay rate by changing the 
>allowed photon spectrum in the gap.  But because of the very high frequency
>the plates would have to be much closer than is typical for the kind
>of cavity experiments you read about nowadays.

     I hadn't thought of this.  Perhaps you should apply for
     a patent and issue a 'disclosure' ...

                              dale bass


--
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926