A comparison between the YBCO discharge experiments by E. Podkletnov and C. Poher, and their theoretical interpretations

Abstract

Experimental results recently published by C. Poher provide independent evidence for the anomalous radiation emitted from YBCO electrodes under short, intense current pulses previously reported by E. Podkletnov. The generation conditions are somewhat different: lower applied voltage, longer duration of the pulses, absence of a discharge chamber. The microstructure of the emitter is also different in the two cases. While Podkletnov's radiation beam is collimated, Poher's beam is more or less diverging, depending on the emitter type. In coincidence with the radiation emission Poher measures a strong recoil of the emitter, with maximum momentum of the order of 1 kg m/s. We compare and discuss several details of the experiments and give a brief outline of the proposed theoretical explanations. We also report numerical simulations of the maximum electromagnetic recoil force on a Josephson junction, as a benchmark for a possible alternative explanation of the recoil.