In a feat of modern-day alchemy, atom tinkerers have fooled hydrogen atoms into accepting a helium atom as one of their own. The camouflaged atom behaves chemically like hydrogen, but has four times the mass of normal hydrogen, allowing predictions for how atomic mass affects reaction rates to be put to the test.
A post on slashdot.org:
Because the muon is heavier, it orbits closer, meaning that less energy is required to collide two together (once you get inside the lepton shell, the two nuclei repel each other until the strong attraction becomes greater than the electrostatic repulsion, at which point you have fusion).
Because the muon is heavier, it orbits closer, meaning that less energy is required to collide two together (once you get inside the lepton shell, the two nuclei repel each other until the strong attraction becomes greater than the electrostatic repulsion, at which point you have fusion).
Which strikes me as interesting.
Just look up muon fusion. It is a well researched area. What does this have in connection with the other item about binding a helium atom?
Because the muon is heavier, it orbits closer, meaning that less energy is required to collide two together (once you get inside the lepton shell, the two nuclei repel each other until the strong attraction becomes greater than the electrostatic repulsion, at which point you have fusion).
Which strikes me as interesting.
Just look up muon fusion. It is a well researched area. What does this have in connection with the other item about binding a helium atom?
I was just quoting someone else. I can only assume that helium (or perhaps any element) with a muon for an electron has a slightly higher chance to fuse. Here's the full post by that person:
This doesn't necessarily exclude nuclear weapons. One of the ideas for fusion is to use hydrogen atoms with a muon instead of an electron orbiting them. Because the muon is heavier, it orbits closer, meaning that less energy is required to collide two together (once you get inside the lepton shell, the two nuclei repel each other until the strong attraction becomes greater than the electrostatic repulsion, at which point you have fusion).
Of course, as you say, the instability of muons makes this impractical.
Would an interaction of antimuons and antiprotons create stable heavy antihydrogen (that does or does not annihilate with normal hydrogen?) that would more easily fuse than normal hydrogen?
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