Bosons could be a common element in gMOD experiments.  Tajmar points to bosons as the basis for his gMOD effect.  At superconducting temperatures electrons (normally fermions) form massive bosonic pairs (called Cooper pairs).  In their original 2006 paper de Matos and Tajmar described the use of Type I superconductors (niobium and lead) in three years of experiments.  According to their theory (connected to Heim Theory by Droscher and Hauser) superconductors should form Cooper pairs.  The angular acceleration of Cooper pairs in rotation should result in the dragging of spacetime and with it the generation of acceleration fields (gMOD).

In a recent paper (“Comment on ‘Nonlinearity of the Field Induced by a Rotating Superconducting Shell'”) Tajmar discusses how it is the “lag-current” (cited by both R. Becker in 1933 and F. London in 1961) produced by the massive Cooper-pairs that generates the magnetic field making gMOD possible.  During rotation some of the pairs rigidly follow the superconducting lattice and some lag behind the lattice during rotation.  Lag plays a key role.

But what about other researchers working with exotic materials and bosons.  Have they reported any gravity-related effects with bosons?  The answer is yes.

Researchers Chris Phillips and  John Pendry at Imperial College London reported almost two years ago their success in using negative refraction optical metamaterials to achieve rudimentary “invisibility cloaks“.  Recent advances by their colleagues at St. Andrews University have allowed researchers to employ photonic crystal lattices as metamaterials to control electron waves called “plasmons”.  These plasmons have been used to create an artificial “event horizon” simulating the gravity field of a black hole.

Plasmons are quasiparticle bosons.  The St. Andrews study was inspired by, and simulates, the geometry of space curved by gravitational fields. The metamaterial that makes up the invisibility cloak stretches the metrics of space in a similar way to what heavy planets and stars do for the metrics of space-time in Einstein’s general relativity theory. Metamaterial semiconductors employed by Phillips are essentially artificial atoms that have the capacity to control the speed of light to a slow crawl.

So massive bosons are implicated in peer-reviewed research on gMOD at superconducting temperatures as well as anecdotal reports of gMOD at room temperature.  But bosons also exist as massless virtual particles.  It is in this virtual state that they are implicated in research on invisibility and metamaterials.  A boson producing the collective excitation of the electron’s spin wave structure in a crystal lattice is known as a magnon (a massless boson).

A  phonon is also a boson.  A phonon is a collective excitation of crystal lattice atoms or ions.  For years phonons have been considered the basis for superconductivity, but a recent paper suggests that superconductivity is not caused by the actions of phonons, but of spin excitations (hypothetical Goldstone bosons).  So now we have a potential connection between superconductivity, Cooper pairs (massive paired-electron bosons), massless (virtual) Goldstone bosons and spin wave excitations.  Droscher and Hauser further contribute to the connection between Cooper electron pairs and phonons, say in their paper Spacetime Physics and Advanced Propulsion Concepts that “The coupling of the electron pairs seems to be via phonons, generated by electron movement through the lattice of the superconductor.

Perhaps it is the interaction of Goldstone bosons that is responsible for effects reported by Searl and Hollingshead.  Hollingshead in particular increased the charge density on electrons by sending 220 volts at 480 Hz through the RP, which could have increased spin excitations.  It could also have effected the excitation of crystal lattice atoms in the RP, producing phonons.  A 1991 patent by Motorola suggested that phonon generation can happen at temperatures higher than that for superconductivity and still lead to the formation of Cooper pairs in a superlattice.  Interestingly, the semiconductor employed by Motorola is the same thin-film material as employed by C. Phillips to produce slow-light  solitons.

Finally, there is also the question of the role of ferrite.  The first naturally occurring metamaterials were found in ferromagnets.  Ferrite is the classic example of a ferromagnet and is the component which gives steel and cast iron their magnetic properties.  Perhaps metamaterials are implicated in reports of power generation in Searl’s device and that of others who claim power production from the interaction of magnetic fields.  More on that at a later date.

There are still too many questions and not enough published research to make any conclusions about the relatedness of these researchers.  Until more independently verifiable data is made available the research by Tajmar combined with improvements suggested by Droscher seem the best bet for the first generation of gMOD.

Though Dr. Tajmar and his colleagues including Clovis de Matos and Walter Droscher are in general (though not complete) agreement on the theory behind gravitomagnetic field modification they represent only a few of the researchers in gMOD.  Mention of the gravitomagnetic effect goes back as far as Heaviside in the 1880s.  Researchers include academics, but also inventors and, admittedly, some zealots.  If only some of these researchers’ reports of gMOD effects are true one would presume that they must be based upon the same physics as that of Tajmar et al.

Skepticism is the rule with regards to the inventors.  There is far more anecdotal reporting in that group than peer-reviewed research by them.  But when effects are reported that fall into line with Tajmar’s results, then perhaps they too have found some aspect of gMOD worth investigating.

First I’ll divide the discussion into two categories:  those devices that operate in the temperature range of condensed matter (i.e. superconducting) and those that operate at or near room temperature.  Tajmar is in the condensed matter (CM) camp, but we should also make mention of University researchers Ning Li and Douglas Torr.  In the room temperature (RT) camp are inventors John Searl, Henry Wallace and Marcus Hollingshead.  Others exist in both camps, but the key points can be made with these exemplars.

In their peer published papers (Physical Review B), researchers Li and Torr used Type II superconductors rather than Tajmar’s Type I superconducting materials.  Li posited that time-varying magnetic fields would produce a small a small gravitomagnetic effect through the spin alignment of lattice ions (see phonons in Part 2).  This contrasts with Tajmar’s assertion of Cooper pair bosons as being the component eliciting the effect.   Li’s last paper on the topic was in 1992.

The RT camp is not represented in peer-reviewed literature and is reported only anecdotally.  Searl reportedly configured magnetic rollers (rotors) to rotate around a central magnetic plate (stator). After a critical angular acceleration was reached the powered device ionized the air and accelerated electrons, producing superconducting temperatures and a CM state.  In recent years his Web site has discussed how the gravity effects were generated through the formation of unimpeded Cooper pairs (similar to Tajmar’s theory).  Several devices were supposedly lost to flight before a dielectric was employed to moderate the effect.  This supposedly happened in the mid 1940’s, 60 years before Tajmar reported his results with de Matos.

Wallace, a scientist at GE Aerospace, was issued patents in the early 1970s for the generation of a “kinemassic” (gravitomagnetic) field.  He posited the effect was due to nuclear spin, not electron spin.  The resultant precession of nuclear angular momentum was suggested to be similar to a rapidly spinning ferrous material.  Wallace based his experiments upon elements with odd number of nucleons (neutrons and protons), saying that there was an analogy between un-paired  angular momentum in these materials and the un-paired magnetic moments of electrons in ferromagnetic materials (ref <a href=”http://www.padrak.com/agn/WALLACE.html”>Stirniman</a>).

In November of 2002 Hollingshead reported effects when he spun three pairs of counter-rotating rings composed of electromagnet stubs (looking like inward-pointing stud collars) around a central soft iron <i>reference point</i> (RP) stator.  The RP stator was configured as a sphere, wrapped in a dielectric and surrounded by another layer of metal, thus acting as a capacitor when electrically charged.  When the rings were spun synchronously gMOD effects were achieved at least four orders of magnitude higher (literally lifting boulders and crushing work benches) than Tajmar’s micro-g experiments.  Hollingshead also reported that when the device was stationery and spun up a dramatic drop in temperature surrounding the RP occurred.

Hollingshead makes no claims regarding the pairing of electrons, but like Wallace suggests that nucleonic mechanisms are in play and that “protons are pushed into becoming neutrons” in the iron nuclei of atoms in the RP.  He even discusses contamination of the RP with “by-products” that attenuate the effect over time.  Whether Hollingshead now claims bosonic interactions is unknown due to his publicly taciturn nature.

Both Searl and Hollingshead reported creation of an ionized halo around their stationary devices, even though Hollingshead claimed he had never heard of Searl before developing his device.  Both reported the generation of a vacuum around the devices as air was pushed outward.  Wallace also hypothesized the generation of a shield effect, while Hollingshead claimed actual generation of a shield… and reported bouncing small objects off of it.

In a 2006 article in New Scientist, Tajmar similarly discussed the potential ability to create a “shield” with such a gravity effect.  He said, “Levitating cars, zero-g playgrounds, tractor beams to pull objects towards you, glass-less windows that use repulsive fields to prevent things passing through.  Let your imagination run riot: a gravitomagnetic device that works by changing the acceleration and orientation of a superconductor would be the basis for a general purpose force field.”  When asked by this blogger about Hollingshead however, Tajmar replied that he did not think that effect (if true) was related to his research. [see my Addendum to Inventors in COMMENTS]

Continued in Part 2