Reaction of deuteron with a heavy nucleus at low energies

TL;DR

This paper extends a mechanism for low energy nuclear reactions to compute the deuteron-heavy nucleus reaction rate, highlighting the role of resonances and electromagnetic perturbations, and finds conditions under which the reaction could be experimentally observed.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed calculation of LENR involving deuterons and heavy nuclei, emphasizing the importance of resonant states for observable reaction rates.

Findings

Reaction rate is very small without resonance assistance.

Presence of nuclear resonant state significantly increases reaction rate.

Reaction could be observable in laboratory conditions with resonance.

Abstract

We extend the recently proposed mechanism for inducing low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) to compute the reaction rate of deuteron with a heavy nucleus. The process gets dominant contribution at second order in the time dependent perturbation theory and is assisted by a resonance. The reaction proceeds by breakdown of deuteron into a proton and a neutron due to the action of the first perturbation. In the second, nuclear perturbation, the neutron gets captured by the heavy nucleus. Both perturbations are assumed to be electromagnetic and lead to the emission of two photons, one at each vertex. The heavy nucleus is taken to be ${}^{58}$Ni although many other may be considered.The reaction rate is found to be very small unless assisted by some special conditions. In the present case we assume the presence of a nuclear resonant state. In the presence of such a state we find that the reaction rate is sufficiently large to be observable in laboratory even at low energies.