This is my own comment, quoted by Mozina, but with emphasis added for this occasion by me ...
To which Mozina responded ...
I think this counts as evidence in support of the hypothesis that Mozina is unable to read colloquial English, since "who said anything about ..." is clearly explained in the very paragraph that Mozina chose to quote, by the words I have emphasized in bold. Who said so is of course me, in this post. A "
strawman" is a misrepresentation of an opponent's argument. I never suggested that Mozina ever said anything about "... and nothing else", so it cannot be a "strawman". Rather, it is an independent assertion made by me and based on well established principles of nuclear physics.
This is not a strawman alert, this is a
physics alert. By now it is certainly well established that Mozina is thoroughly ignorant of that which he also holds in great contempt, namely the entire science of physics. See again what I said above: "
The CNO fusion reactions which Mozina falsely claims to see evidence for near the solar surface do not generate random gamma rays ..." This is not a symptom only of the
CNO Cycle reactions, but is the rule throughout the entire edifice of
nuclear physics. It is typical of nuclear reactions that the energy released is specific to that reaction. The energy can be released as particles (neutrinos, electrons, protons, alpha particles & etc.) or as photons (usually gamma rays because atomic nuclei are high energy environments). But in almost every case, the energy released will tell you what the reaction was that released the energy,
if you understand nuclear physics well enough.
The
CNO cycle is actually several catalytic cycles of nuclear reactions which result in a net generation of energy. In the case of our sun, about 1% to 2% of its output energy is generated in the 15,000,000 Kelvin core by CNO reactions, while the remaining 98% to 99% of its output energy is generated by the
proton-proton (pp) fusion cycles. The CNO cycle is actually a family of several chains of nuclear reactions that all run simultaneously. The interested reader can find a most detailed description of the CNO process in, for instance,
Nuclear Physics of the Stars by Christian Iliades, Wiley-VCH 2007 or
Solar Astrophysics by Peter Foukal, Wiley-VCH 2004 (2nd revised edition; see chapter 6).
Look at the first reaction in the CNO1 chain (using the terminology in
Nuclear Physics of the Stars):
12C(p,gamma)13N. This is the typical notation used in nuclear physics. It tells us we start with
12C, put in a proton, get out a gamma ray, and wind up in the end with
13N. Energy must be conserved in this and all reactions. The total energy that goes in will be the mass-energy (
E = mc2) and binding energy of the
12C nucleus and the mass energy of the proton along with the kinetic energy of the proton. The total energy that comes out will be the mass-energy, binding energy and kinetic energy of the
13N nucleus. If the proton does not have enough kinetic energy it will just bounce off the
12C nucleus. If the proton has too much kinetic energy it will either smash the
12C nucleus to bits, or just fly right past it without reacting. Only protons with just the right quantifiable energy will produce the diagrammed reaction. So we just balance the in & out energies, respecting the conservation of energy principle, and we know exactly what energy the gamma ray
must have if it comes from this reaction. As you, can see in
Foukal, this reaction will generate an output gamma ray with an energy of 1.94 MeV.
The same analysis is valid for all of the reactions in each of the CNO reaction chains. So all of the narrow-line gamma ray emission features from each chain should be emitted by the sun, simultaneously, if that CNO chain is in effect at or above the photosphere of the sun. This spectrum of narrow line gamma ray emission is not seen and that fact by itself is sufficient to rule out any CNO reaction chain at or above the photosphere of the sun. The complete absence of all narrow line features from the CNO chains is sufficient by itself to rule out all CNO reactions. The only limit here is the threshold of observability. So we can say with confidence in physics that there a not enough CNO reactions at or above the photosphere of the sun to produce any observable evidence. And that clearly means that CNO processes at or above the photosphere of the sun cannot have any significant impact on solar energy generation.
This is why the
ignorant paper by Mozina, Ratcliffe & Manuel would never have been published in any appropriate journal. What is really amazing is that the authors maintain a deliberate and enforced personal ignorance of the basic physics that is not just relevant, but actually crucial to the validity of a claim, concerning which they feel qualified to write a professional paper. That is not conduct that I would personally approve as appropriate for anyone claiming to be a professional in the field.
