Holmlid does make a distinction between what he calls ordinary fusion processes (e.g. D+D) and those which calls annihilation-like. Both can apparently occur spontaneously (on their own, without an deliberate energy input) at a low rate, but the hard-to-capture meson reactions seem to "dominate".
https://iopscience.iop.org/art…02-4896/ab1276#psab1276s8
Quote8. Nuclear processes in H(0)
Nuclear processes exist in H(0), both in p(0) and D(0). These processes are not only fusion processes (of course only existing in D(0)), but other types of nuclear processes in fact dominate. Both laser-induced and spontaneous processes have been studied. These processes cannot be described as fusion reactions since they do not give the products expected from normal nuclear reactions. Instead, they much more resemble annihilation reactions from their product spectrum (Klempt et al 2005). They thus seem to belong to a novel type of nuclear reaction which may be directly coupled to the transformation of quarks inside the nuclei. Such experiments have not been performed by any other research group, and it is thus not possible to give any references to other studies. [...]
Further below in the text he writes, in reference also to past experiments:
Quote8.2. Heat generation
Several different types of high-energy particles are generated by the laser-pulse interaction in H(0), as described above. Most of these particles are penetrating and do not stop close to the laser target. To test the possibility of local heat generation despite this, an experiment was designed with an enclosure (copper cylinder) around the laser target with H(0) (Holmlid 2015c). The temperature of the enclosure was measured during experiments with variable laser energy and gas pressure. Only D2 gas was used to optimize the heat generation by giving the possibility of D + D fusion. Thus, the results may be due to nuclear fusion and not only due to (at that time) unknown annihilation-like nuclear processes. Even under these conditions when most high-energy particles could not be contained in the enclosure, an excess heat was observed in the copper cylinder (Holmlid 2015c). The fact that high-energy particles left the enclosure was also described in this report. The results show clearly that excess heat can be generated by the laser impact on D(0), partly due to nuclear fusion, and that further energy generating processes giving even higher energy exist.
The nuclear fusion processes in D(0) had been studied in another publication previous to the heat measurements. That study was done by TOF measurements using a PMT for sensitive particle measurements (Olofson and Holmlid 2014b). All particles involved in D + D fusion processes were detected but T which indeed was expected to react on forming 4He in the end. Of course, neutrons could not be detected by the PMT detector. Collisional processes of several emitted particles with the small D4(0) clusters were also detected. Thus, background information that fusion indeed took place under the conditions used for the heat measurements existed in Olofson and Holmlid (2014b) prior to the heat generation experiments in Holmlid (2015c).