Historical research guide · 0679 · 2009
Theory of Bose–Einstein condensation mechanism for deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in micro/nano-scale metal grains and particles
Yeong E. Kim
In one minute
This is the paper that put Yeong Kim’s theory of low-energy deuteron fusion into a mainstream science journal. Kim, of Purdue University, starts from the experimental situation rather than from the theory: many groups have reported anomalous deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metals at energies far too low for ordinary fusion. His answer is deliberately conventional. Load deuterium into a metal grain only micrometres or nanometres across, let the deuterons become mobile inside it, and they can occupy a Bose–Einstein condensate — the state in which many identical particles share a single quantum wavefunction, the same state cold-atom laboratories make routinely. In that shared state the usual electrical repulsion between deuterons stops being the deciding obstacle. Kim argues the picture accounts for most of the reported observations, and, more usefully, that it makes predictions experiments can check, including how the effect should scale with the size of the grain. No new force is introduced anywhere in it.
Connection
Chapter twelve needs a mechanism rather than a list of anomalies, and this is the journal paper where that mechanism is stated in conventional language: condensation, trapping, scale. It is also the version of Kim’s theory that a physicist outside the field is most likely to have met, which makes it the right entry point before the fuller condensed-matter-nuclear-science papers.
From the source
There have been many reports of experimental results indicating occurrences of anomalous deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metals at low energies.Abstract, first sentence
A consistent conventional theoretical description is presented for those anomalous low-energy deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metal — conventional being the operative word, since no new force or new constant is introduced.Abstract, second sentence
The theory is based on the Bose–Einstein condensate state occupied by deuterons trapped in a micro- or nano-scale metal grain or particle.Abstract, third sentence
The theory is capable of explaining most of the experimentally observed results, and it also provides theoretical predictions which can be tested experimentally.Abstract, fourth sentence
Scalabilities of the observed effects are discussed on the basis of those theoretical predictions — how the effect should change as the grain size, and therefore the number of trapped deuterons, changes.Abstract, fifth sentence
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-009-0537-6How to cite it
Yeong E. Kim (2009) Theory of Bose–Einstein condensation mechanism for deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in micro/nano-scale metal grains and particles doi:10.1007/s00114-009-0537-6