abstract

• Fusion of two deuterons at room-temperature energy is studied. The nuclei are in vacuum with no connection to any external source (electric or magnetic field, illumination, surrounding matter, traps, etc.) which may accelerate them. The energy of the two nuclei is conserved and remains small during the motion through the Coulomb barrier. The penetration through this barrier, which is the main obstacle for low-energy fusion, strongly depends on a form of the incident flux on the Coulomb center at large distances from it. In contrast to the usual scattering, the incident wave is not a single plane wave but the certain superposition of plane waves of the same energy and various directions; for example, a convergent conical wave. As a result of interference, the wave function close to the Coulomb center is determined by a cusp caustic which is probed by de Broglie waves. The particle flux gets away from the cusp and moves to the Coulomb center providing a not negligible probability of fusion (cusp driven tunneling). Getting away from a caustic cusp also occurs in optics and acoustics. © 2013 American Physical Society.

authors

• Ivlev Boris

publication date

• 2013-01-01

published in

• Physical Review C - Nuclear Physics  Journal

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1103/PhysRevC.87.034619

start page

end page

volume

• 87

issue

• 3