Theory of Bose–Einstein condensation mechanism for deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in micro/nano-scale metal grains and particles
Yeong E. Kim
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In one page
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.
Why it matters hereChapter 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.
What it claims
01There have been many reports of experimental results indicating occurrences of anomalous deuteron-induced nuclear reactions in metals at low energies.Abstract, first sentence
Published and peer-reviewed02A 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
Published and peer-reviewed03The 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
Published and peer-reviewed04The 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
Published and peer-reviewed05Scalabilities 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
What to watch
The way in
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-009-0537-6SOURCE NOT REACHED IN FULL. Published as Naturwissenschaften volume 96, issue 7, pages 803 to 811, posted online 14 May 2009 and printed in July 2009. The article is closed access and carries no Creative Commons statement; OpenAlex and Unpaywall both return closed with no repository copy, Springer serves an authorisation redirect rather than the article, and no author copy was found in the LENR-CANR library or on arXiv — all checked 2026-09-08. No text of the paper is reproduced here. The summary and the claims are written from Kim’s own published abstract, carried in full by the PubMed record for PMID 19440686, and the locators cite that abstract sentence by sentence. AFFILIATION. The published article gives Kim’s address as the Physics Department, Purdue University, 525 Northwestern Avenue, West Lafayette, Indiana. COMPANION READING. Kim’s later and fuller statements of the same theory are in this library and were read in full: Bose–Einstein Condensate Theory of Deuteron Fusion in Metal, J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 4 (2011) 188 to 201, at /library/stm-b29b16be6e, and Kim and Ward, Bose–Einstein Condensation Nuclear Fusion: Role of Monopole Transition, J. Condensed Matter Nucl. Sci. 6 (2012) 101 to 107, at /library/stm-b25013f0bb.
How 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
Where it sits in the curriculum