Comment on "K. Hansen, Int. J. Mass Spectrom. 399-400 (2016)51"

TL;DR

This paper refutes Hansen's critique of their mass spectrometry data, affirming the validity of their original interpretation and dismissing contamination or alternative explanations.

Contribution

The authors defend their original data analysis against Hansen's critique, confirming the proton contamination interpretation and the applicability of their rotational energy transfer model.

Findings

Hansen's re-plotting yields inconsistent mass estimates.

The original data analysis remains valid and supported.

Laser-induced nuclear fusion is unlikely the source of protons.

Abstract

The comment by K. Hansen suggests that the time-of-flight mass spectrometry data in one table in our paper from 2103 in IJMS should be due to a proton contamination and correspond to protons p instead of deuterons D. The evidence for such a suggestion is a re-plotting of our data, giving a bond distance of 5.0 pm instead of 2.3 pm, corresponding to state s = 3 instead of s = 2 in the ultra-dense hydrogen. However, protium has indeed been studied on the next pages in our paper, giving shorter time-of-flights as expected. A replotting of our protium results as suggested by Hansen gives a best fit mass of 0.6 u, showing that the suggested procedure gives consistently too small mass. Hansen also rejects the rotational energy transfer model as due to our use of D in the analysis of the data. However, this model has been applied successfully in two previous publications, including experiments using protium. Hansen also suggests that the protium is due to a contamination of the source; however, the gas feed (H2 or D2) and its result is well controlled and monitored. The most likely source of protons was instead laser-induced nuclear fusion, but the laser intensity in these experiments was a factor three too low to give strong fusion. Thus, the suggestion by Hansen is not valid.