Roles of resonant muonic molecule in new kinetics model and muon catalyzed fusion in compressed gas

Abstract

Muon catalyzed fusion (muCF) in which an elementary particle, muon, facilitates the nuclear fusion between the hydrogen isotopes has been investigated in a long history. In contrast to the rich theoretical and experimental information on the muCF in cold targets, there is relatively scarce information on the high temperature gas targets of deuterium-tritium mixture with high-thermal efficiency. We demonstrate new kinetics model of muCF including three roles of resonant muonic molecules, (i) changing isotopic population, (ii) producing epi-thermal muonic atoms, and (iii) inducing fusion in-flight. The new kinetics model reproduces experimental observations, showing higher cycle rate as the temperature increasing, over a wide range of target temperatures (T<800 K) and tritium concentrations. Moreover, it can be tested by measurements of radiative dissociation X-rays around 2 keV. High energy-resolution X-ray detectors and intense muon beam which are recently available are suitable to reveal these dynamical mechanism of muCF cycles. Towards the future muCF experiments in the high-temperature gas target we have clarified the relationship between the fusion yield and density-temperature curve of adiabatic/shock-wave compression.