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I've found several articles discussing experimental evidence of a deuterium state of densities over $140 \textrm{ kg}/\textrm{cm}^3$:

  • F. Winterberg. Ultradense Deuterium. arXiv.

  • Shahriar Badiei, Patrik U. Andersson, Leif Holmlid. High-energy Coulomb explosions in ultra-dense deuterium: Time-of-flight-mass spectrometry with variable energy and flight length. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, Volume 282, Issues 1–2, 15 April 2009, Pages 70-76. DOI.

  • Patrik U. Andersson, Leif Holmlid. Superfluid ultra-dense deuterium D(−1) at room temperature. Physics Letters A, Volume 375, Issue 10, 7 March 2011, Pages 1344-1347. DOI.

Have these super-dense states been replicated by third parties?

Have these super-dense states yet to be replicated by third-parties?

diffeomorphism
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  • Never heard of any of this. Interesting papers, certainly non-trivial in their data coverage. But wow... wouldn't this be Nobel prize territory if some small group really has found any type of room-temperature superconductivity? The densities quoted offhand seem extremely unexpected for electron-cancelled condensates of any sort, nuclear or not (D(-1) being of course a nuclear-sized boson), but the quasi-2D surface is... a factor. Third-party replication would indeed would be nice, there's an understatement! – Terry Bollinger Sep 10 '12 at 18:07
  • @TerryBollinger, apparently the superconductivity is inferred, not directly measured, since they haven't been able to create more than a hundred atom samples, at least this is what they seem to imply – diffeomorphism Sep 10 '12 at 18:23
  • Ah, hmm! Well, they'll need to get well beyond inferred to get to that Nobel Prize. They'll also need to explain that density issue. Maybe they do in their papers, maybe not? I'll definitely look. But such densities are so unexpected that they will require some serious attention to the question of how to achieve them if only room-temp electrons are electrons available to cancel out positive charge. Hmm, maybe Fermi sea surface electrons? Those can have shorter wavelengths, up to X-ray range electron energies, but short enough? Seems unlikely... – Terry Bollinger Sep 10 '12 at 19:19
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    Can you link to some free versions of the experimental papers? – Ron Maimon Sep 11 '12 at 07:10
  • @TerryBollinger: The Rydberg states are nowhere near the ground state, so stuff like this is not ruled out by any simple considerations. I don't see any reason to doubt the experimental results, although I don't know what the configuration is. – Ron Maimon Sep 11 '12 at 07:10
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    Rydberg? Hmm. Well, that saves me some time; it tells me the papers very likely aren't worth reading. Invoking the gigantic, near-classical high-energy electron continuum states of Rydberg atoms at a solid lattice interface just makes no obvious sense, especially not geometrically. And in any case, Rydberg orbits reduce the electron density near the nucleus very close to zero, leaving bare deuterons for which high densities are harder to explain, not easier. So, feel free to speculate or suggest why Rydberg states might help instead of hurt, but I think I just lost interest in these papers. – Terry Bollinger Sep 14 '12 at 03:29
  • @TerryBollinger, maybe the electron energy is not distributed in orbital degrees of freedom, maybe it is distributed over the lattice, like highly-excited Fermi electron levels – diffeomorphism Sep 16 '12 at 22:40
  • Always be skeptical of papers written in Word, from a university in Reno... – DilithiumMatrix Apr 29 '13 at 14:59
  • The relevant keyword seems to be "Rydberg matter." Nearly all work in this field appears to be by Leif Holmlid. Holmlid has two papers on arxiv, both of which set off a lot of my kook alarms because they mainly cite his own work and don't appear to have been published in a refereed journal. The talk page on the WP article on Rydberg matter is pretty revealing. He has published in refereed journals such as the International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, which appears to be legitimate although it has a low impact factor. It would be good to get an opinion from a condenser matter physicist. –  May 29 '13 at 16:56
  • This all seems to be intimately bound up with cold fusion. Holmlid has co-authored papers with cold fusion theorists Hora and Miley. –  May 29 '13 at 21:49
  • related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/74651/can-rydberg-states-exist-within-the-bulk-of-a-metal –  Aug 20 '13 at 18:58

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Have these super-dense states been replicated by third parties?

No, I don't think there has been anything published in any reputable journal claiming to have reproduced Holmlid's supposed experimental discovery of ultradense deuterium. If there had been, it would have been big news.

He is active in the cold fusion community, so it would not be surprising if other cold-fusion kooks did similar experiments and presented them at true-believer conferences, etc. Holmlid is basically a one-man echo chamber who tirelessly pushes his crackpottery in online venues such as Wikipedia and physics.SE. Although he has managed to get his articles published in journals, a literature search showed that out of 2154 references to his papers, 1863 were self-citations.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Holmlid's claims, about both "Rydberg matter" and "ultradense deuterium," are extraordinary, and there is no evidence for them from any reputable experimentalist.

By the way, he has another, more recent paper claiming laser-induced fusion in ultradense deuterium: http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2781

  • Geez, can you condescend a bit more? Not sure what you're trying to say here. Anyways, he's not a "one man echo chamber". He's been both peer reviewed and his university (sweden's second oldest) has published press releases backing him up. http://www.gu.se/english/about_the_university/news-calendar/News_detail//small-scale-nuclear-fusion-may-be-a-new-energy-source.cid1323710 – Blaze Oct 01 '15 at 08:01
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I follow the publications of Holmlid since two years. His explanation of p(-1) and D(-1) as "inverted" Rydberg matter seemed strange to me too. But in his latest publication (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijms.2013.08.003) he explains these hyperdense forms of protium and deuterium as Bose-Einstein Condensates and he refers to the theory of Jorge Hirsch about superconductivity and the Meissner effect (arXiv:0908.1577v1 [cond-mat.supr-con] 12 Aug 2009).

Dr. L. Steinbock
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