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Perspectives
Published in Ivan G. Draganić, Zorica D. Draganić, Jean-Pierre Adloff, Radiation and Radioactivity on Earth and Beyond, 2020
Ivan G. Draganić, Zorica D. Draganić, Jean-Pierre Adloff
The muon is a short-lived elementary particle with a half-life of 2.2 microseconds, which is similar to the electron but 207 times heavier (Table 4, Chapter 2). It appears in secondary cosmic rays and can be produced with high energy accelerators. Theoretical considerations indicate that because of its large mass, a negative muon can catalyze fusion in a mixture of deuterium and tritium. The process consists of a sequence of events governed by laws of atomic and molecular physics which do not require high temperatures. When exposed to muons, the nuclei of 2H and 3H fuse to form a single nucleus of 5He, which breaks up into a free neutron and 4He, i.e., an alpha-particle. The reaction releases energy as the neutron and α-particle move away from each other at high speed. The muon is left behind and is free to repeat its role as a catalyst, thereby maintaining a chain fusion reaction. However, this is not always the case, since the positively charged α-particle can capture the negative muon and interrupt the chain process. Experiments show that more than 100 fusion reactions per muon can be achieved, and different concepts of muon-catalyzed fusion processes have been proposed and investigated.
Nanotechnology and Energy
Published in Stephen L. Gillett, Nanotechnology and the Resource Fallacy, 2018
“Nuclear catalysis” has also been intermittendy studied since the 1950s. A muon is a particle that’s for all intents and purposes a “heavy electron When a muon orbits a nucleus, then, the effective size of the resulting “muonic” atom is much smaller, and this can let a nucleus get dose enough to another for fusion to occur. In effect the muon cancels the charge on the nucleus. Unfortunately, the muon is an unstable particle, and so, although “muon‐catalyzed” fusion has been observed, it’s been far below the level needed for practical applications.
Neutrons from Muon-Catalyzed Fusion and Muon-Capture Processes in an Ultradense Hydrogen H(0) Generator
Published in Fusion Science and Technology, 2018
A generator forming ultradense hydrogen H(0) (Refs. 1, 2, and 3) using D2 or ordinary H2 gas (or p2) as input produces kaons, pions, and muons both spontaneously and after laser induction by a fast laser pulse.4–7 Most muons are formed by decay from the mesons, which may mean that most muons are formed at some distance from the generator from kaons, partly via pions.8 However, some muons are formed relatively close to the generator, for example from faster decay of charged kaons.5–7 Negative muons can be used to initiate muon-catalyzed fusion in a D2 gas at high pressure.9,10 This well-studied fusion method has been known since the 1950s but has not been employed for energy generation due to the lack of muon sources giving muons at low enough cost in energy and money. This situation has now changed completely due to the invention of muon generators using ultradense hydrogen H(0) (Refs. 11, 12, and 13). Muon-catalyzed fusion relies on the fact that a negative muon may replace the electron forming a molecular ion H-µ-H+, with the H-H distance a factor of 207 (mass ratio 105.7/0.511 MeV) shorter than in normal molecular ions H-e-H+ with one bonding electron. This means that the D-D distance is approximately 0.5 pm in the ground state of the ion dµd+ instead of 106 pm in ordinary ded+. Extensive experiments show that muon interaction gives rapid D + D fusion,14,15 which generates neutrons. Each negative muon may give a number of such processes (up to 200 in the case of dµt+) (Ref. 15) before it decays, which is the reason for the name muon-catalyzed fusion. Besides fusion, muons may also be captured in nuclei and give neutrons.16 Here, we use two types of commercial detectors containing 6Li for the detection of thermal neutrons, using moderation in polyethylene (PE) to thermalize fast neutrons. The instruments detect neutrons from fusion in D2 and also possibly neutrons from muon-capture processes, for example in surrounding materials. With H2 in the muon generator, muons are generated which may take part in capture processes, but not in fusion. The larger neutron signal found with D2 thus proves that muon-catalyzed D + D fusion takes place.