A recent experiment on a physical, nonbiological system of ions at room temperature has proved that microscopic ion currents can be induced by applying simultaneously two parallel magnetic fields, one rather weak static field, (-->)B(0) and one much weaker alternating field, (-->) B(ac),[B(ac) approximately 10(-3) B(0)] whose frequency coincides with the cyclotron frequency v = qB(0)/2pim of the selected ion. As a result, ionic bursts lasting up to 20 s and with amplitude up to 10 nA arise. The much larger exchanges of energy induced by thermal agitation (the "kT-problem") appear to play no role whatsoever. We have analyzed this problem in the framework of coherent quantum electrodynamics, reaching the following conclusions: (a) as has been shown in previous articles, water molecules in the liquid and solute ions are involved in their ground state in coherent ordered configurations; (b) ions are able to move without collisions among themselves in the interstices between water coherence domains; (c) because of coherence, ions can follow classical orbits in the magnetic fields. A full quantitative understanding of the experiments is thus reached.
Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.