Antimatter

Harvest The Fire, CHAPTER 8.

I understand that the USS Enterprise is powered by controlled matter-antimatter interactions. Proserpinan spaceships are powered by antimatter which is:

produced on Mercury;

 

captured according to Bose-Einstein quantum mechanics;

 

confined by a laser, electromagnetic system;

 

stored underground;

 

pumped into transport ships where it is refrozen;

transported in small quantities to Earth, Mars orbit, Luna, asteroids and outer satellites;

 

transported in large quantities to a well-guarded storage facility in orbit 15 a.u.'s from Sol.

 

A Bose-Einstein (scroll down) condensate is used in the zero-zero drive in Starfarers.

Why must antimatter be produced on Mercury? Why can't the Proserpinans produce antimatter? Maybe because the production process has to be robotic and the Proserpinans don't want that?

Haertel And Olivares

 

Starfarers, Prologue.

Some future histories feature future successors of Einstein: James Blish's Adolph Haertel and Poul Anderson's Edward Olivares. Whereas the Haertel overdrive is FTL, Olivares' theories lead to the sub-light-speed zero-zero drive:

a Bose-Einstein condensate can be used to generate a laserlike effect that brings all the atoms in two parallel super-conducting plates into the same quantum state;

the nonlinear consequences create a singularity;

energy flowing from the cosmic substrate through the singularity is distributed evenly so that the resultant acceleration is not felt;

the quantum field collapses, returning the energy to the substrate;

however, more energy can immediately be borrowed to make another interstellar jump of about 100 astronomical units with the exact value depending on the local metric;

relativistic effects - increase of mass, shortening of length and time dilation - occur as interstellar distances are traversed.

Yet Another Technicality

Starfarers.

When the zero-zero drive is operating:

the Bose-Einstein condensate becomes unstable;

 

consequently, the energy taken from the substrate is not fully returned to it through the condensate;

 

this slight differential causes a minute, random possibility of destructive quantum gate malfunction;

 

such malfunctions would explain some starship disappearances;

 

however, the probability decreases with quantum gate capacity;

 

because Envoy's gamma is five thousand, the danger to her is much less than that from ordinary space travel hazards. (29, pp. 272-273)

 

The energy that is not returned smoothly to the substrate is instead reclaimed violently from the surrounding matter, thus wrecking a starship. However, the danger can be eliminated by devising quantum-wave guides. Thus, future starships will have not only the zero-zero drive and the field drive but also quantum-wave guides as well as other improvements. (49, pp. 473-474) The future of interstellar travel is secure.

 

When Yu has explained the unstable condensate problem to Nansen, she continues but then pauses:

 

"'Although-'

"The wind shrilled. 'Yes,' prompted Nansen after several seconds.

"'I don't know.' He heard the trouble in her voice. 'Something else in the equations -'" ( 29, p. 273)

 

Yu is troubled so, of course, the wind shrills, right on cue. The something else is the possibility that the zero-zero drive threatens cosmic stability, which is later refuted.