The vast majority of muon catalyzed fusion research has been concerned with muonic molecules of hydrogen isotopes only, since the dynamics of higher-Z muonic atoms in general preclude the formation of molecular systems. In the specific case of hydrogen-helium mixtures, bound muonic molecular states can exist, and thus it is possible to search for the reactionUntil recently, the theoretical predictions for the nuclear fusion rate in the µd 3 He molecule, λf , ranged over one order of magnitude, from 10 5 to 10 6 per second. An experimental upper limit has been measured for λf in HD + 3 He giving a value (< 6 × 10 4 s −1 [1]). We report on the analysis of an experiment in D 2 + 3 He which has shown a signal coming either from the muon catalyzed reaction, or from the fusion in flight of 3 He's formed from dµd fusion.
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