Hydrogen result causes controversy

When is the ground state of a hydrogen atom not the ground state? When it is a “hydrino” state, according to Randy Mills and co-workers at BlackLight Power, a company based in Cranbury, New Jersey. In a series of papers Mills and co-workers have argued that the results of a variety of experiments on hydrogen plasmas can only be explained by the existence of a new state in which the electron has less energy than the n=1 ground state. Mills argues that the hydrino state could be used as a new source of energy — a claim that has led to a predictably negative response from other researchers — and may even have some connection to the problem of “dark” matter. Now two theoretical physicists in Europe have joined the debate, with one opposing the hydrino hypothesis and the other supporting it.

PhysicsWeb