Enhanced proton-boron nuclear fusion cross sections in intense high-frequency laser fields

Abstract

We investigate the proton-boron nuclear fusion cross sections under the influence of the intense linearly polarized monochromatic laser fields with high frequency. First, we rewrite the time-dependent Schrödinger equation using Kramers-Henneberger (KH) transformation which allows for shifting all time dependence of the problem into the potential function. Then, for the intense laser fields that satisfy the high frequency limit, the time-averaged scheme in the KH framework should be valid. We can use WKB approximation to evaluate Coulomb barrier penetrability and then calculate proton-boron nuclear fusion cross sections by a phenomenological Gamow form. We show that the corresponding Coulomb barrier penetrability increases significantly due to the depression of the time-averaged potential barrier. As a result, we find that proton-boron nuclear fusion cross sections can be enhanced effectively depending on a dimensionless quantity nd, which equals the ratio of the quiver oscillation amplitude to the geometrical touching radius of the proton and boron nucleus. For nd=9, we predict that the resonance peak of the fusion cross-section is enhanced by about 26 times at the incident energy of ε=148 keV. And for another incident energy of ε=586 keV, the resonance peak of fusion cross-section is not only enhanced but also shifted to lower energy of ε=392 keV due to the mechanism of over-barrier fusion.