Replication of Deuterium Fusion four times above Break-even?
In 2015 Dalkarov, Negodaev and Rusetskii (1, attached) reported a heat release about 4 times higher when a titanium deuteride target was irradiated with a deuterium beam, than when a titanium target was irradiated with a proton beam. The beam energies were quite low, in the range of 10-25 keV. Below is figure 2 from their paper on the temperature rise on the wall of water-cooled targets.
To my knowledge this work has not been followed up, neither by the group themselves nor by others. A replication is badly needed, because it may be a solution to the worlds energy problems. Most of the world’s particle accelerators operate at too high energies, except where people study fusion reactions in stars. Perhaps very small particle accelerators for teaching purposes could be used. Or perhaps laser induced particle acceleration would work.
Dalkarov et al (1) suggest that the heat might come from D + D à 4He + Heat.
Such a fusion reaction without neutrons is not recognized in physics. However, in the literature there are many examples of heat release when deuterium is subjected to “dynamic” confinement in metals, for example in a major part of the cold fusion literature. Other examples are the D + D + D à 4He + D reactions of Takahshi (2) and Kasagi (3) and the heat release found by Holmberg (4) after laser acceleration of deuterium. Perhaps a DD or DDD (Efimov) intermediate might interact with the dense electrons in the metal, or step on the nuclei in the metal lattice.
References
(1) O. D. Dalkarov, M. A. Negodaev, A. S. Rusetskii, ”Investigation of heat release in the targets during irradiation by ion beams”. Lebedev Institute, arXiv preprint arXiv. 2015.
(2) A. Takahashi, K. Maruta, K. Ochiai, H. Miyamaru, “Detection of three-body deuteron fusion in titanium deuteride under the stimulation by a deuteron beam”. Phys. Lett. A 235, 89-97. 1999.
(3) J. Kasagi, T. Ohtsugi, K. Ishii, M. Hiraga, “Energetic protons and α particles emitted in 150-keV deuteron bombardment on deuterated Ti”. J. Phys. Soc. Japan 64, 777-783. 1995.
(4) L. Holmlid, “Heat generation above break-even from laser induced fusion in ultra-dense deuterium”. AIP Advances, 5, 087129. 2015.
