Nano-scale thermonuclear fusion in imploding vapor bubbles

Abstract

This paper presents the specific features of violent vapor cavitation bubble implosion induced by an energetic acoustic standing wave in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) experiments performed using deuterated acetone [Taleyarkhan, R.P., West, C.D., Cho, J.S., Lahey Jr., R.T., Nigmatulin, R.I., Block, R.C., 2002. Evidence for nuclear emissions during acoustic cavitation. Science 295, 1868; Taleyarkhan, R.P., West, C.D., Cho, J.S., Lahey Jr., R.T., Nigmatulin, R.I., Block, R.C., 2004. Additional evidence of nuclear emissions during acoustic cavitation. Phys. Rev. E 69, 036109]. A detailed description and analysis of these data, including a resolution of the criticisms that have been raised, has been given by Nigmatulin et al. [Nigmatulin, R.I., Taleyarkhan, R.P., Lahey Jr., R.T., 2002. The evidence of thermonuclear fusion D + D during acoustic cavitation. In: Vestnik ANRB, No. 4. Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia; Nigmatulin, R.I., Taleyarkhan, R.P., Lahey Jr., R.T., 2004. The evidence for nuclear emissions during acoustic cavitation revisited. J. Power Energy 218-A, 345] and Lahey et al. [Lahey Jr., R.T., Taleyarkhan, R.P., Nigmatulin, R.I., Akhatov, I.S. Sonoluminescence and the search for sonofusion. In: Advances in Heat Transfer, vol. 39. Academic Press, in press]. The results presented in this paper are found based on the numerical simulations of the bubble implosion phenomena. A more detailed description of the equations for the mathematical modeling of the phenomena has been given by Nigmatulin et al. (2005).