Eur. Phys. J. A (2006) 27: 79-82
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-08-011-0

Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics II

Enhanced d(d,p)t fusion reaction in metals

¹ Institut für Physik mit Ionenstrahlen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
² Atomki, Debrecen, Hungary
³ China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, PRC
⁴ Centro de Fisica Nuclear, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
⁵ School of Physics, University of Edinburgh, UK
⁶ Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Seconda Università di Napoli, Caserta, Italy
⁷ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università Federico II and INFN, Napoli, Italy
⁸ Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso dell'INFN, Assergi, Italy
⁹ Sezione di Padova, INFN, Padova, Italy

^* e-mail: raiola@ep3.rub.de;

Received: 21 June 2005
Accepted: 20 December 2005
Published online: 24 February 2006

Abstract

The electron screening in the d(d,p)t reaction has been studied for the deuterated metal Pt at a target temperature C to C, and for Co at C and C. The enhanced electron screening decreases with increasing temperature, where the data agree with the plasma model of Debye applied to the quasi-free metallic electrons. The data represent the first observation of a temperature dependence of a nuclear cross-section. We also measured the screening effect for the deuterated metal Ti (an element of group 4 of the periodic table) at C to C: above C the hydrogen solubility dropped to values far below unity and a large screening effect became observable. Similarly, all metals of groups 3 and 4 and the lanthanides showed a solubility of a few percent at C (compared to C) and a large screening became also observable. Within the Debye model the deduced number of valence electrons per metallic atom agrees with the corresponding number from the Hall coefficient, for all metals investigated.