Results for the tμ+D 2 Reaction by the Methods of Quantum Reactive Scattering

Abstract

In a recent paper [1], we applied the methods of quantum reactive scattering to the key resonant reaction in the muon catalyzed fusion (MCF) cycle that leads to the formation of a dtμ muonic molecular ion, in which fusion takes place very rapidly. We calculated reaction probabilities for tμ + D2 scattering for incident kinetic energies less than 0.6 eV in the centre of mass frame and total angular momentum Jtot=0, using the APH (adiabatically adjusting, principal axes hyperspherical) formalism of Pack and Parker [2], which had previously been applied to simple chemical reactions. This was the first successful application of the above methods to the tμ + D2 reaction. In this paper, we examine a significant discrepancy between our values for the back decay partial width for the resonances we consider and the results that have been obtained using previous methods.