Strongly Enhanced DD Fusion Reaction in Metals Observed for keV D⁺Bombardment

Abstract

The excitation functions of the yield of protons emitted in the D(d,p)T reaction in Ti, Fe, Pd, PdO and Au were measured for bombarding energies between 2.5 and 10 keV. It was found that the reaction rate at lower energies varies greatly with the host materials. The most strongly enhanced DD reaction occurs in PdO. At E d ¼ 2:5 keV, it is enhanced by factor of fifty from the bare deuteron rate and the screening energy deduced from the excitation function amounts to 600 eV. An enhancement of this size cannot be explained by electron screening alone but suggests the existence of an additional and important mechanism of the screening in solids.

Enhanced d(d,p)t fusion reaction in metals

“…The electron screening in d(d,p)t was studied previously for deuterated metals, insulators, and semiconductors, i.e. 58 samples in total [2,3] (see also [4,5]). As compared to measurements performed with a gaseous D 2 target (U e = 25 eV [6]), a large screening was observed in the metals (of order U e = 300 eV), a e-mail: raiola@ep3.rub.de; for the LUNA Collaboration.…”

Theory of the Coulomb Dissociation

“…The measured values are however not compatible with the adiabatic estimate [8,9,10,11,12]. Dynamical calculations have been performed, but they obviously cannot explain the discrepancy as they include atomic excitations and ionizations which reduce the energy available for fusion.…”

“…This case has been studied in great detail experimentally, as one can control different charge states of the projectile+target system in the laboratory [8,9,10,11,12]. The experimental findings disagree systematically by a factor of two or more with theory.…”

The role of correlation entropy in nuclear fusion in liquid lithium, indium and mercury

“…Attempts to explain the experimental results in Sendai [1,2,3], in Bochum and Gran Sasso [4,5,6,7,8,9], and in Berlin [10,12,11] are based on:…”