Nuclear fusion induced by X-rays in a crystal
Abstract
The nuclei that constitute a crystalline lattice, oscillate relative to each other with a very low energy that is not sufficient to penetrate through the Coulomb barriers separating them. An additional energy, which is needed to tunnel through the barrier and fuse, can be supplied by external electromagnetic waves (X-rays or the synchrotron radiation). Exposing to the X-rays the solid compound LiD (lithium-deuteride) for the duration of 111 hours, we have detected 88 events of the nuclear fusion d+Li6 ---> Be8*. Our theoretical estimate agrees with what we observed. One of possible applications of the phenomenon we found, could be the measurements of the rates of various nuclear reactions (not necessarily fusion) at extremely low energies inaccessible in accelerator experiments.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1603.01723,
title = {Nuclear fusion induced by X-rays in a crystal},
author = {V. B. Belyaev and M. B. Miller and J. Otto and S. A. Rakityansky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.01723},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
27 pages, 12 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. C on 28 October 2015