Enhanced low energy fusion rate in palladium (Pd) due to vibrational deuteron dipole-dipole interactions and associated resonant tunneling that over-cancels the Jastrow factor between deuteron pair wavefunctions

TL;DR

This paper proposes that vibrational dipole interactions among deuterons in palladium can enhance fusion rates by resonant tunneling, potentially over-canceling Coulomb barriers and indicating a new low-temperature phase.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism involving vibrational dipole interactions and resonant tunneling that could significantly increase low-energy fusion rates in palladium deuteride.

Findings

Strong coupling of interstitial deuterons via electromagnetic fields.

Existence of lower-energy superposition states in PdD clusters.

Preliminary evidence of over-canceling Coulomb barriers.

Abstract

We show that interstitial hydrogen nucleii on a metallic lattice are strongly coupled to their near neighbours by the unscreened electromagnetic field mediating transitions between low-lying states. We then show that in almost-stoichiometric PdD clusters, in which most interstitial sites are occupied by a deuteron, certain specific superpositions of many-site product states exist that are lower in energy than the single-site ground state, suggesting the existence of a new low temperature phase. The modified behaviour of the two-particle wavefunction at small separations is investigated and prelimary results suggesting an over-canceling of the effective Coulomb barrier are presented.