Screening Enhancement of Low Energy Fusion Cross Sections - Digital Download

Part A — Screening Physics and Experiments
by David J. Nagel

This 14-page paper appeared in Issue 166 (2024).

From the Introduction: ...The most fundamental measure of a nuclear reaction probability is the cross section, which is very dependent on the collision energy. When a beam of deuterons impacts a target at a particular energy, it slows down while moving within the target, and eventually stops. Hence, the total likelihood of fusion events is an integral over the cross section for all of the energies from the impact energy down to near zero energy. The escape probabilities for reaction products can be depth dependent. The total emission is the thick target yield of fusion reaction products. Thick target deuterium fusion yields are deduced from the measured conventional fusion products, specifically energetic neutrons, protons and tritons. It is possible to determine the cross sections at specific impact energies by measuring thin target yields as a function of energy. The incident ions are essentially mono-energetic during their interactions with thin targets. However, the production, characterization and use of thin targets are challenging. It is easier experimentally, and hence more common, to simply compare the integrated thick target yields as a function of beam energy, and to extract the desired energy dependent cross sections from such data...In this review, we are going beyond standard nuclear reaction cross sections to consider enhanced deuterium fusion reactions within solids, a topic apparently closely related to LENR...