Paper: “Enhanced D-D Fusion Rates when the Coulomb Barrier Is Lowered by Electrons”

The following paper has been published on Arxiv.org by a team of researchers at Cornell University. It was submitted on June 22, 2021

Title: “Enhanced D-D Fusion Rates when the Coulomb Barrier Is Lowered by Electrons”

Authors: Alfred Y. Wong, Alexander Gunn, Allan X. Chen, Chun-Ching Shih, Mason J. Guffey

Abstract:

A profusion of unbound, low-energy electrons creates a local electric field that reduces Coulomb potential and increases quantum tunneling probability for pairs of nuclei. Neutral beam-target experiments on deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions, observed with neutron detectors, show percentage increases in fusion products are consistent with electron-screening predictions from Schrodinger wave mechanics. Experiments performed confirm that observed fusion rate enhancement with a negatively biased target is primarily due to changes to the fusion cross section, rather than simply acceleration due to electrostatic forces.

Full text:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2106/2106.12988.pdf