Theoretical interpretation of anomalous tritium and neutron productions during Pd/D co-deposition experiments

Department of Physics, Purdue University, Physics Building, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

Corresponding author: yekim@purdue.edu

Received: 2 June 2010
Revised: 27 July 2010
Accepted: 16 August 2010
Published online: 30 November 2010

Abstract

The recent experimental observations of triple tracks in solid-state nuclear track detectors, CR-39, during Pd/D co-deposition experiments indicate that the triple tracks are due to ~14 MeV neutrons, which appear to originate from “hot” fusion reaction D(t,n)⁴He. Nuclear theory interpretation of the origin of ~14 MeV neutrons is presented in terms of a sub-threshold resonance reaction involving (T + p) resonance state of ⁴He* (J^π = 0⁺) at 20.21 MeV, which produces 1.01 MeV T. An upper limit of the branching ratio, R(n)/R(T), between neutron production rate and tritium production rate is calculated to be R(n)/R(T) < 10^-4. Experimental tests of the proposed theoretical interpretation are proposed.