Dilithium Crystals -- What's the Point?

[Saquist]

^Uh, if by "the 60" you mean the 60% of the reaction product consisting of neutrinos, then no. As I said, the electromagnetic force has zero effect on neutrinos because they have no charge. The only force that acts on neutrinos is the weak nuclear force, which only acts at subatomic distances.

And actually there's more given off by a proton-antiproton reaction than just gamma rays and neutrinos. It's a lot more complicated.

http://arts.bev.net/roperldavid/Antimatp.htm

Initially, when a proton and antiproton react, the initial results are six pions, two positive, two negative, and two neutral. After 10^-16 seconds, the neutral pions each decay into gamma rays. After a microsecond, the charged pions decay into muons, neutrinos, and antineutrinos. Then, about ten nanoseconds after that, the positive muons decay into positrons and neutrinos while the negative muons decay into electrons and neutrinos.

So ultimately what you end up with is electrons, positrons, neutrinos, and gamma rays. The neutrinos are lost to you, taking away about 55% of the energy produced by the reaction, but it's possible to extract energy from the electrons, positrons, and gamma rays.

So the warp plasma that carries energy to the nacelles may consist largely of electrons and positrons, perhaps combined with some kind of inert working fluid that absorbs the gamma rays and thus stores their energy for delivery to the nacelles.

Sorry, I mis understood.
The weak nuclear force is automic decay, correct?
So what does a neutrino decay into?

I know that neutrinos change flavors and because they change flavor we know they have mass and experience a passage of time. If they decay then...how long does it take? We get neutrino burst hundreds of light years away and they are not traveling at c.

 

[Christopher]

Sorry, I mis understood.
The weak nuclear force is automic decay, correct?
So what does a neutrino decay into?

Weak force is the force that mediates radioactive decay as well as the force that mediates neutrino interactions. Neutrinos are created by radioactive decay and nuclear reactions. They don't decay themselves, but they can interact with certain other particles (specifically leptons, meaning particles such as electrons and muons) by exchanging W or Z bosons, the exchange particles of the weak force. A Z boson exchange with another particle (a neutral current interaction) simply transfers some of the neutrino's energy and momentum, which can accelerate the other particle and give off Cherenkov radiation (the kind given off by electrons accelerated to relativistic speed). A W boson exchange (a charged current interaction), the neutrino turns into a duplicate of the particle it interacts with (but only if it has enough kinetic energy to transform into the mass of the particle in question), which can be an electron, muon, or tau meson.

 

[Myasishchev]

So what's the deal with Trek sensors routinely being able to detect neutrinos, anyway?

Poetic license.

Heh, and it occurred to me that even if they do have giant neutrino detectors, they've got them sitting next to a source of rather loud static. Deciphering its signals is probably like trying to tune to a radio broadcast from Earth when you're swimming in the center of the sun.

Still, I rather like the idea of giant aquarium on starships with a primary function as a neutrino antenna. They can demonstrably still detect signals over their own neutrino noise--the added wrinkle of some humpbacks in the way is probably an engineering problem orders of magnitude less difficult.

 

[BrownShatner]

I would disagree with the claim that it's purely "treknobabble".

Dilithium is clearly intended valuable economically, and that provides an additional political aspect to various federation activities. It provides a depth to the series that doesn't exist if you assume the ships run purely on magic.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Magnetic containment isn't that easy. It's difficult to create a stable containment bottle, to get the fields in the right configuration and keep them strong enough to contain the particles. The idea behind dilithium (as devised by Sternbach & Okuda during TNG) is that its crystalline lattice makes an ideal containment vessel when immersed in a powerful magnetic field. The atoms of the crystal magnetically suspend and channel the particles and antiparticles between them. This would also facilitate the reaction, since protons and antiprotons are very small and if they were just swirling around in a big open space, they'd rarely collide at all (meaning the "swirl chamber" design from TMP and VGR is actually rather silly, no matter how cool it looks). The dilithium crystal lattice forces the particles and antiparticles into contact and thus makes the reaction far more efficient.

Moreover, it helps to contain and focus the energetic particles that result from the reaction, channeling them into a plasma stream that can be directed to the warp engines.

Of course, the real reason they use dilithium is that TOS's writers made up (di)lithium crystals as a plot McGuffin without bothering with the technical details, and later creators had to work with what they were given.

In Star Trek, dilithium was never mentioned as being used for long term storage of antimatter. Dilithium was only used in conjunction with the matter-antimatter reaction.

And, unlike fusion, M/AM don't need some special technobabble containment field to facilitate the reaction. Simply use deuterium and antideuterium ions. The opposing electrostatic charges will attract each other. Using dilitium containment will only marginally increase the efficiency - hardly the indispensable component it's painted as in the trekverse.

 

[Ronald Held]

Diltithium may mediate the conversion of the gamma rays into something that can power the electroplasma?

 

[JarodRussell]

I would disagree with the claim that it's purely "treknobabble".

Dilithium is clearly intended valuable economically, and that provides an additional political aspect to various federation activities. It provides a depth to the series that doesn't exist if you assume the ships run purely on magic.

Agreed.

 

[Myasishchev]

You know, it occurred to me: whether dilithium is actually the mirror or not, something must be containing the gamma radiation.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Not containing it, focusing it. The purpose of the crystals is to concentrate and focus the matter/antimatter reaction, enabling a warp field strong enough to propel a ship faster than warp 4 (think sunlight + magnifying glass + ant).

 

[Myasishchev]

You're saying that dilithium is a gamma ray lens, instead of a mirror?

 

[Plecostomus]

You're saying that dilithium is a gamma ray lens, instead of a mirror?

Works for me.

The "drive plasma" is the medium that transfers the gamma flux to the nacelles. Losing drive plasma causes a series of events that can result in a catastrophic core failure.

Electroplasma is a separate medium then, possibly used to heat the ship and through a thermoelectric conversion process to power everything.

Hm! It's all coming together in my mind.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

You know, it occurred to me: whether dilithium is actually the mirror or not, something must be containing the gamma radiation.

Something must, indeed, contain the gamma radiation; but even today, we have solutions to containing gamma rays that don't involve magical dilithium.
This is why I think this ideea is unsatisfactory - dilithium is considered (in the trekverse) as indispensable, as a technological solution that has no substitute.

Not containing it, focusing it. The purpose of the crystals is to concentrate and focus the matter/antimatter reaction, enabling a warp field strong enough to propel a ship faster than warp 4 (think sunlight + magnifying glass + ant).

I explained in my above post why dilithiun crystals are not needed to catalyze M/AM reactions.
As for focusing the gamma rays produced in the warp core, that doesn't increase the energy carried by the gamma rays; the nacelles will receive the same amount of energy.
At most, you could say that gathering/focusing the gamma rays will make the process of powering the plasma that carries the energy to the nacelles easier/more efficient - but here, too, we're talking about a marginal incresase in efficiency. Here too, the dilithium crystals aren't an indispensable component of the warp core.



How can one rationalize the dilithium crystals as indispensable?
If they were located in the nacelles, it would be easy - they would be the component that transforms energized plasma into strong gravity/antigravity fields (and they could do this much more efficient that any other gravity generation tech known to trek science).

But they are located in the warp core - this is why I propose that the dilithium crystals can gather the neutrinos generated by the M/AM reaction, greately increasing the efficiency of the warp core - neutrinos carry ~60% of the energy released in matter/antimatter reactions and modern day science knows only a mind-boggingly inefficient way to stop only very few neutrinos.
Of course, dilithium crystals can stop the elusive neutrinos using a scientific principle unknown to modern science.
The fact that star trek sensors (even tiny/light tricorders - see Data in "Insurrection") have no problem detecting neutrinos supports my interpretation - let's say a detector using dilithium senses neutrinos.

 

[JuanBolio]

You might not need to do anything with neutrinos at all. In a matter/antimatter reaction the charged pions will travel several meters before decaying into neutrinos. If you can absorb and use the pions before they decay, escaping neutrinos will be a non-issue. Same goes for neutral pions decaying into gamma rays, though these decay considerably faster.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

You might not need to do anything with neutrinos at all. In a matter/antimatter reaction the charged pions will travel several meters before decaying into neutrinos. If you can absorb and use the pions before they decay, escaping neutrinos will be a non-issue. Same goes for neutral pions decaying into gamma rays, though these decay considerably faster.

In our future, pion capture will almost surely be method of efficientizing M/AM reactions (unless a means of capturing neutrinos really is discovered) - even today, we can capture charged pions, but not very well.

In the trekverse, as neutrino-detecting tricorders prove, neutrinos can be captured easily.
In my opinion, dilithium should be seen as capturing neutrinos, not pions, also because that fits the dilithium crystals' near-mythical status (the only known solution of capturing neutrinos with any efficiency; not one of several solutions of capturing decaying pions).

 

[JuanBolio]

You might not need to do anything with neutrinos at all. In a matter/antimatter reaction the charged pions will travel several meters before decaying into neutrinos. If you can absorb and use the pions before they decay, escaping neutrinos will be a non-issue. Same goes for neutral pions decaying into gamma rays, though these decay considerably faster.

In our future, pion capture will almost surely be method of efficientizing M/AM reactions (unless a means of capturing neutrinos really is discovered) - even today, we can capture charged pions, but not very well.

In the trekverse, as neutrino-detecting tricorders prove, neutrinos can be captured easily.
In my opinion, dilithium should be seen as capturing neutrinos, not pions, also because that fits the dilithium crystals' near-mythical status (the only known solution of capturing neutrinos with any efficiency; not one of several solutions of capturing decaying pions).

Okay, but if the M/AM reaction is taking place inside or directly adjacent to the dilithium, the pions won't have had time to decay to neutrinos by the time they reach the crystals.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

You might not need to do anything with neutrinos at all. In a matter/antimatter reaction the charged pions will travel several meters before decaying into neutrinos. If you can absorb and use the pions before they decay, escaping neutrinos will be a non-issue. Same goes for neutral pions decaying into gamma rays, though these decay considerably faster.

In our future, pion capture will almost surely be method of efficientizing M/AM reactions (unless a means of capturing neutrinos really is discovered) - even today, we can capture charged pions, but not very well.

In the trekverse, as neutrino-detecting tricorders prove, neutrinos can be captured easily.
In my opinion, dilithium should be seen as capturing neutrinos, not pions, also because that fits the dilithium crystals' near-mythical status (the only known solution of capturing neutrinos with any efficiency; not one of several solutions of capturing decaying pions).

Okay, but if the M/AM reaction is taking place inside or directly adjacent to the dilithium, the pions won't have had time to decay to neutrinos by the time they reach the crystals.

Charged pions travel a few tens of meters before decaying in a vacuum.
However, most of them will travel far less if they are in a magnetic containment field (such as the one around the warp core) - they are charged particles - or if they are in a material (such as warp plasma). In these conditions, most charged pions will be contained inside the warp core.

 

[Ronald Held]

With a strong enough magnetic field they(pions) can be expelled for propulsion in this universe

 

[Captain Robert April]

Well, that might explain the TMP impulse engines, and why there's a direct connection with the intermix chamber.

 

[JuanBolio]

Well, that might explain the TMP impulse engines, and why there's a direct connection with the intermix chamber.

Oh yeah - an antimatter reaction would be a far more powerful and efficient power source for impulse engines than fusion would, whether impulse is a Newtonian rocket or some kind of field drive.

If its the former and you're tapping the resulting sub-atomic particles for your propellant, you'd have a beam core antimatter rocket, which has a number of drawbacks - namely low thrust, high radioactivity, and the tendency to transmute the materials of the thrust nozzle into radioactive isotopes: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3c2.html#ambeam

 

[Captain Robert April]

^Which would explain why they went back to fusion based impulse engines in later models.

The way I see it, the refit Enterprise was something of a prototype, whereas the E-A is more of a regular production model.