Exponential enhancement of nuclear reactions in condensed matter environment
Abstract
A mechanism that uses the environment to enhance the probability of the nuclear reaction when a beam of accelerated nuclei collides with a target nucleus implanted in condensed matter is suggested. The effect considered is exponentially large for low collision energies. For t + p collision the mechanism becomes effective when the energy of the projectile tritium is below 1 Kev per nucleon. The gain in probability of the nuclear reaction is due to a redistribution of energy and momentum of the projectile in several ``preliminary'' elastic collisions with the target nucleus and the environmental nuclei in such a way that the final inelastic projectile-target collision takes place at a larger relative velocity, which is accompanied by a decrease of the center of mass energy. The gain of the relative velocity exponentially increases the penetration through the Coulomb barrier.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.nucl-th/0312035,
title = {Exponential enhancement of nuclear reactions in condensed matter environment},
author = {M. Yu. Kuchiev and B. L. Altshuler and V. V. Flambaum},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:nucl-th/0312035},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, revtex, 2 figures