Independent Experimentation on the Activation of Deuterium-Loaded Materials by X-Ray Exposure

TL;DR

This study attempted to replicate reported x-ray induced nuclear activation in deuterated materials but found no evidence of activation even with equipment matching the original study's specifications.

Contribution

The paper provides a direct replication attempt of previous findings using identical equipment, addressing prior limitations and confirming the absence of activation.

Findings

No evidence of nuclear activation at 160kV or 200kV

Replicated conditions with equipment matching original study

Confirmed previous negative results under improved conditions

Abstract

In an attempt to replicate work performed elsewhere [1], we have searched for x-ray induced nuclear activation of deuterated materials. Our first results, reported in September 2015, showed no evidence of nuclear activation, contrary to the results reported in [1]. The primary shortcoming of our first attempt, however, was that the x-ray tube we used was capable of a maximum accelerating potential of only 160kV, less than the 200kV used on the comparison test sample from [1]. Thus, our results could not exclude processes initiated by x-rays near 200 keV in energy. A second potential shortcoming was that our x-ray tube did not have a microfocus beam, like the one used in [1]. Recently, we have irradiated additional samples with an x-ray tube matching the specifications of the tube used in [1]. By matching the test conditions with essentially identical equipment, we have overcome both of the shortcomings of our previous measurements. As before, we find no evidence of activation. The bulk of this report, pages 2 through 35, contain the results and analysis from the first round of testing. The extension to 200kV is found in the final appendix, namely Appendix A5.