As I understand you are talking about electronic cooling.KitemanSA wrote:Counter-intuitive, isn't it. But remember that you are not "cooling" per-se, you are keeping the ions mono-energetic. Things trade kinetic and potential energy all the time. They do here too.Joseph Chikva wrote:Ok, thanks. I am heating my soup pan and in result that is cooling. Am I correct?KitemanSA wrote:AFAIK, the primary force against thermalization is thermalization. See "Annealing" at this site:
http://www.ohiovr.com/polywell-faq/inde ... e#Glossary
The thing to remember is that the collision cross section is much bigger at the cold end of this spectrum than the hot. So thermalization works better when cold. IIUIC.
A lot of people think of the fuel ions in a Polywell as ball bearings rolling up and down a bowl, but that isn't a good mental picture. Try thinking of them as ball bearings that get MUCH smaller at the bottom than the top. Thus, fewer collisions at the bottom and many more at the top. Ions catching up with ions (overtaking) have very small relative velocity so are bound to nudge and average the energy more often than ions in opposition spreading the energy.
All in all it makes sense, but still needs to be proved. And if it turns out not to be true, then it may be that the Polywell will not run steady state. Doesn't mean it won't work, just not steady state.
You mean that ion-electron relative velocity at the edge is lower than in the core. And at the expense of it ions at the edge pass its radial (thermal) energy to electrons?
I never thought about it and so, I do not know how big that difference. But electrons have at least 4,000 fold lower mass and consequently for effective cooling you need a few orders of magnitude more electrons. Or electrons should be a mechanism allowing electrons to radiate that energy.
What do you think?