I think that Mills theory for two atom molecules can be used to explain an increase in cross-sections that I've not seen mentioned when discussing the recent notes from Louis DeChiaro.
The short story is that one of the factors that demand such high energies in standard theory is that any small deflection from a perfect hit will deflect the trajectory if the incoming nucleus is at small energies, so you you not only need to overcome the energy barrier to hit the target, you must also have such high momentum so that the repulsion have less impact on the deflection. What I can argue from reading Randell Mills GUTCP and perhaps one can copy the idea over to QM is that essentially the electron field and an interplay with angular momentum enable a focusing effect of the incoming nucleus at lower energies meaning that cross-section increases many orders of magnitude. If you then consider a condensed matter you could realize that this aiming is aligning the movements more and more for each oscillation and resulting in a nucleus hit at high rate. Also note that for high energy hits are at large relative speeds. But if we have an aiming effect in condensed matter we tend to have much lower relative speeds at an hit. Could this low relative hit mean that we have a more spherical symmetric interaction and much more balance essentially enabling other kinds of radiation phenomena then what is expected from high energy fusion experiments. Remember most of our experience is at high energy collisions. What is this aiming. Well, as the nucleus approach the target the most energy efficient electron distribution for the combined cluster is that of a cigar or ellipsoid with the angular momentum axis along the long axis of the ellipsoid. If the in-coming nucleus is missing the target we would essentially get an angular momentum that is varying if we assumed the minimal energy distribution if the electron field for each radial distance, but the system preserve the angular momentum. So a less energetically electron distribution must be the reality. In an oscillation the best energetically period is one that does a perfect hit e.g. there is a force that aims the nucleus to align perfectly. At least that is how I picture it myself the reality is more complex, but you get the principle from my argument. Enjoy! Regards Stefan
