I finally recalled where I recently heard speculation about muons causing cold fusion. It was Duncan's lecture at ICCF-15. Slide 19:
http://iccf15.frascati.enea.it/ICCF15-PRESENTATIONS/S1_O2_Duncan.pdf QUOTE: Muon-catalyzed Ignition? •Muons shower us at the rate of one per cm2per minute, with an average energy of 3 GeVand a rest-frame half-life of 2.2 s •Only low-energy muonscan form D--D •Estimated arrival rate at thermal energies is one per cm2 per hour (Cohen and Davies, Nature 338, 705 (1989)) •Must arrive in D-rich voids in the Pd, since muonsin the Pd will be K-shell captured by the Pd and hence not available to form D--D (Richard Garwin and others, discussions) •ET experiment: 10cm2, estimate 1% of D in voids, hence a once in 10 hr average arrival time of an ‘ignition muon’. –Qualitatively describes why onset time and extent of the excess heat release is highly dependent on Pd preparation –Does not describe how the chain reaction is sustained, or why neutrons and tritium are absent, or why the gamma is absent if the D+D gamma 4He + gis favored. Make of it what you will. The idea has been around from the beginning, as noted in item 3. Cohen and Davies published two short items in Nature, which I can send copies of to anyone who is interested. My copy is an image-only Acrobat file, so I cannot easily post the text. - Jed
