To come back to the BH fusion, there is something I do not understand ...
We will take the opportunity to do the 1st lesson
We will call Q the heat of reaction.
If Q is negative, energy must be supplied, endothermic reaction.
If Q is positive, it releases energy, exothermic reaction.
Take a reaction of type X (x, y) Y
X and Y are nuclei,
x and y are nuclei, particles, radiation, whatever you want ...
X + x -> Y + y
Q = mX + mx - mY -my
mX is the mass of X, mx is the mass of x, etc.
In the case that interests us, namely BH, we have
B + H -> 3He
mB = 11.009
u (11 B)
mH = 1.007u (825H)
mHe = 4.002u (603He)
Q = 9.321E-3 u or 8.6825
MeV (1u = 931.5 MeV)
Now we are talking about merger:
B + H -> C (12C)
mC = 12u
Q = 0.01713 u or 15.957 Mev
To go from C to 3He:
Q = -7.275 MeV
It is a fairly energetic fusion reaction but which should yield 54% of its energy at best to produce 3He and therefore be clean.
So we have 8.68 Mev of energy left, which is almost nothing related to the number of nucleons present (but that's already good).
Just for comparison, a 235U fission produces an average of 200MeV.
All that to say that I don't understand how they go from 12C to 3He
... Fission, desexitation with emission of 2 alpha ... If you have ideas ...
If not, did you like your first lesson?
It was pretty soft, right?