In the mid to late 1990s few in LENR were as prolific as Yasuhiro Iwamura and associates. This was due to good financial support from Mitsubishi and positive results. Below are a few of the dozens of papers he and his associates published, using the very best equipment. Many papers are found in the LENR-CANR library. Iwamura was ever so close to becoming the great hero of LENR - but pieces of the puzzle went missing, and today he is too often overlooked despite an enormous contribution.
In scouring the library for evidence of dark matter in LENR, which was reported in data but not appreciated at the time, here is one paper with information which supports the dark matter signature at ~3.6 keV. There are others. http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYcorrelatio.pdf Look at Fig. 4. "Long-term X-ray Emission and its energy spectrum" Notice the steepness of the spectrum below ~10 keV and the exponential increase in counts The energy spectrum shown here represents about a week of run-time. This can be interpreted as evidence of dark matter formation, but the authors had no appreciation at the time, that cosmological data would turn up which indicates the prevalence of that soft x-ray signal in the Universe and also relate to dense hydrogen. The extreme peak of x-ray counts at low keV is provocative but not proof. This bit of history is mentioned in the context of a proposed dark matter reaction for thermal gain in LENR, which is bolstered by findings from Iwamura, together with a fusion "side effect". Basically the conjecture is supported by dark matter formation followed by a secondary nuclear reaction, where most of the thermal gain (~90%) comes from formation of DDL, and thereafter some of the DDL fuses. The overall reaction involves fusion, but most of the heat comes from deuterium densification. This hypothesis is falsifiable. Small amount of deuterium fusion with oxygen could happen, when heavy water is the feedstock for DDL since oxygen is also a Rydberg catalyst. From other papers of Iwamura - we see that this kind of fusion does NOT go to helium, but involves the fluorine reaction, which is not widely appreciated as a typical LENR transitory product . unless you appreciate why a water-based DDL molecule would favor the O-> F-> O reaction where oxygen goes to fluorine and then back to oxygen (O18 isotope) quickly. Half-life is short. Mass of 16O is 15.995 amu. Mass of 18F is 18.0001. Mass of 18O is 17.999. Net difference of O isotopes is 2.004. Deuterium mass is 2.014 but if the reaction happens with DDL deuterium, then net gain is lower, and this explains the lack of gammas. A positron emission takes the fluorine back to O18. There are plenty of x-rays here, but not high energy. No helium is seen. Fluorine is seen (and in other papers of Iwamura) but disappears (half-life is 90 minutes) Figure 4 suggest that most of the signal comes from the soft end of the spectrum, and much of the rest looks like bremsstrahlung - which is consistent with positron annihilation. (decay product of fluorine) Without all of these factors - the signal of DDL(dense deuterium), the appearance and then disappearance of fluorine, and the lack of residual radiation - nothing else makes sense - so it is easy to overlook. The one factor which will prove or disprove the hypothesis is the ratio of 16O to 18O. That would seal the deal - if the reaction begins with oxygen-16 and ends with oxygen-18, and the proof is that the natural ratio will change. The reason Iwamura enters the picture is that he was the first to detect fluorine and x-rays in the proper spectrum along with excess heat and NO helium, yet using the highest quality laboratory and team. In fact, considering this transitory reaction's (O-F-O) short half-life (less than 2 hours for 18F before it reverts to 18O) we can now appreciate that Iwamura actually detected massive amounts of fluorine in total - but never realized how much, since he was not fully taking into account the short half-life. Iwamura, Y., Itoh, K., Toyoda, I., "Observation of Anomalous Nuclear Effects in D2-Pd System", 1ccf4 pp.160-164 Itoh, T., Iwamura, Y., Gotoh, N., and Toyoda, I., "Observation of Nuclear products under vacuum condition from deuterated palladium and High Loading ratio", 1ccf 5, pp 189-196. Iwamura, Y. et al iccf6, (1996) p 274 Iwamura, Y. et. al., "Detection of anomalous elements, x-ray, and excess heat in a D2-Pd system and its interpretation by the electron-induced nuclear reaction model", Fusion Technology, 33, (1998) p. 476 Iwamura, Y. et al, "Detection of Anomalous Elements, X-Ray and Excess Heat Induced by Continuous Diffusion of Deuterium through Multi-Layer Cathode (Pd/Cao/Pd), Proc. 7th Int. Conf. on Cold Fusion, April 19-24, 1998, Ed., Jaeger, F., Published by Eneco Inc., Salt lake City, Utah, USA (1998) pp 167-172
