Catalysis and autocatalysis of chemical synthesis and of hadronization

Abstract

We compare the thermodynamics and catalysis of two important exothermic chemical reactions, the homogeneously catalyzed chain reaction of H2 oxidation and the heterogeneously catalyzed ammonia synthesis, with those of an important exothermic physical reaction, namely the proton or neutron synthesis from elementary particles, i.e. quarks or relativistic neutrinos, a process known as hadronization. We show that, surprisingly, hadronization has several similarities both with homogeneous autocatalytic chain reactions, as well as with heterogeneously catalyzed ammonia synthesis. In NH3 synthesis, the presence of electrical charge, namely alkali promoters or protons or electrons on transition metals, enhances the formation of catalytically active intermediate NH species, while in hadronization, free electrons or positrons lower the activation energy and facilitate the formation of catalytically active bosonic e±-neutrino intermediates. These entities liberate highly active neutrinos, creating, via their relativistic mass increase, a strong local gravitational field with all the mass-producing properties of the Higgs field. The main analogies and differences between the electric field effects in chemical catalysis and the electric and gravitational field effects in hadronization catalysis are identified and briefly discussed.