On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 3:38 PM, Bob Higgins <[email protected]> wrote:
> If the process was neutron capture, where are you proposing that the > neutrons are coming from? > The thought was that if the amount of tritium was on the order of the background count for neutrons, the tritium might come from very low levels of free neutrons generated within the system itself by some unknown process (e.g., spallation). If the level of tritium is significantly above that of the background neutron count, this hypothesis wouldn't make sense. I am only vaguely familiar with Claytor's work. He may actually be seeing low but significant levels of neutrons at times. Some researchers have reported them at low levels. I have a hard time believing this can occur without overcoming the Coulomb > barrier such that either the proton or the neutron in a deuterium is in > contact with the neutron of the donor nucleus. Once they are in contact, > and the strong force is in play with both nuclei, the neutron would > statistically be transferred in some cases, but doing this would still > require overcoming the Coloumb barrier at low temperature. > Do you have any ideas for donor nuclei? This is possible with nickel, palladium or lithium, but simple transfer reactions are endothermic, implying that the deuterons must be energetic, even if there's no Coulomb barrier getting in the way: d + 61Ni => t + 60Ni + -1563 keV d + 105Pd => t + 104Pd + -837 keV d + 7Li => t + 6Li + -994 keV There are some interesting exothermic fragmentation reactions: d + 105Pd => t + 50Ti + 54Cr + 18133 keV d + 6Li => p + t + 4He + 2559 keV Eric
