Non-nucleon metastable excitations in nuclear matter and $e^{-}$ catalysis as a quark-cumulative mechanism for initiating low-energy nuclear chemical processes: phenomenology

TL;DR

This paper explores a novel quark-cumulative mechanism in nuclear matter triggered by electron interactions in low-energy plasma, leading to metastable excitations and radioactive decay, with implications for nuclear chemistry and material processing.

Contribution

It introduces a new quark-cumulative process initiated by electron collisions in low-energy plasma, linking nuclear metastable states to low-energy chemical processes.

Findings

Metastable nuclear excitations are induced by electron interactions at 3-5 eV.

Quark-cumulative effects lead to radioactive decay in non-radioactive isotopes.

Experimental evidence from laser ablation and plasma exposure supports the proposed mechanism.

Abstract

The present study demonstrates that the mechanism of initiation of low-energy nuclear chemical processes under conditions of low-temperature non-equilibrium deuterium and protium-containing glow discharge plasma is similar to the previously studied cumulative mechanism of initiation of nuclear processes in the collision of relativistic particles (protons) with target atomic nuclei. This process results in the formation of high-energy products that significantly exceed the kinematically resolved region in the pulse space for two-particle collisions "nucleus-target's nucleus." The cumulative effect in this case is associated with the initiation of non-nucleonic metastable excitations in nuclear matter during relativistic collisions leading to the formation of a group of quarks from different nucleons within the nucleus. In low-energy nuclear chemical processes, the initiation of quark-cumulative processes in nuclear matter occurs through interaction of nuclei with electrons with high kinetic energies on a chemical scale, typically $E_e$ ~ 3-5 eV. Experiments and available literature data suggest that the metastable excitations of nuclear matter containing three "free" quarks which occur during such collisions are associated with quark-cumulative effects, leading to the radioactive $\alpha$- and $\beta$-decay of elements. This phenomenon is observed during laser ablation of metals in aqueous media containing radioactive elements and in the artificial radioactivity of initially non-radioactive isotopes in cathodes exposed to low-temperature non-equilibrium deuterium- and protium-containing plasma flows during glow discharge.