How the ionization is possible in living matter?

The appearance of ions in living matter looks mysterious. Same is true concerning ions in electrolytes. It is easy to talk about cold plasma but much more difficult to answer the question how this cold plasma can be created. Usually the formation of plasma involves ionization, which requires high temperature of order of the atomic binding energy for the valence electrons of the atom. For hydrogen atom the binding energy is around 13 eV, which corresponds to a temperature of roughly 130,000 Kelvin! This is three orders of magnitude higher than room temperature! In electrolyte the presence of rather weak electric fields cannot explain why the ionization takes place.

For some reason chemists and biologists do not spend much time in pondering fundamentals and theoreticians enjoying monthly salary have a highly irreverent attitude to these disciplines as an intellectual entertainment of lower life-forms. Therefore also this question has been guided under the rug and stayed there.

TGD based explanation for the paradox is simple. If the value of h_eff/h=n for valence electrons is high enough, the binding energy, which is proportional to 1/n², becomes so high that a photon with rather low energy, say infrared (IR) photon, can be ionize the dark atom. One can say that the atoms in this state are quantum critical, a small perturbation can ionize them.

1. In the TGD based model of cold fusion as dark nucleosynthesis the atoms would have n=2¹²= 2056 and the ionization would create dark nuclei as sequences of dark protons at magnetic flux tubes (see this).
   
   
2. In the TGD based model for the analogs of DNA/RNA/amino-acid sequences/tRNA as dark proton sequences the value of n would be of the order of 10⁶ higher so that the distance between dark protons, would be a same as between DNA letters, about 3 Angstroms. For these values of n dark atoms are unstable at room temperatures.
   
   
3. In Pollack effect (see this) the irradiation by IR light or visible light or by pumping energy to the system by some other means produces negatively charged exclusion zones (EZs) in which water molecules form hexagonal layers and obey the effective stoichiometry H_3/2 O. Part of protons (every fourth) goes to magnetic flux tubes as dark protons. How it is possible to create this state by IR radiation?
   
   
   1. The original assumption was that in second OH bond of water molecule is excited to a high energy state near to ionization energy so that IR photon can split the bond. The question is: why and how? Do the UV photons from solar radiation cause the excitation?
      
      
   2. A more elegant option is that the value of n for the second O-H bond is so large that the bond binding energy is so small that IR photon can split the bond. Solar UV photons could induce the dark excitation. Taking 5 eV as rough estimate for the bond binding energy in the normal state water, this requires the reduction of energy by a factor of order 10³ to give IR energy .05 eV (energy scale assignable to the membrane potential eV). n would increase by factor of order 2⁵=32 from its value for O-H bond according to standard chemistry. A small push by absorption of IR photon can split the O-H bond and create dark proton at flux tube. Any perturbation feeding to the system this energy can induce the kicking of dark proton to flux tube. The generalization of this mechanism to various atoms could be one of the basic mechanisms of quantum criticality in living matter.
      
      

See the article Does valence bond theory relate to the hierarchy of Planck constants? or the chapter Quantum criticality and dark matter.

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

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