Effects of Impurities in the Cycle of Muon Catalyzed Nuclear Fusion (muCF)

众所周知，一个停在氢中的介子催化引起反中子和海子的核聚变。然而，聚变周期中包括的基本过程仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。在高能物理国家实验室12GeV质子同步加速器上，我们研究了奇异粒子的库仑俘获过程，以及奇异粒子X从中性粒子&lt；px^-&gt；转移到更重原子的过程。通过用本征锗探测器探测原子序数Z大于2的元素的皮涅克X射线，测量了构成分子的各个原子中的介子的俘获几率。对于氢，通过介子和质子之间的电荷交换反应产生的衰变的中性介子的伽马射线对被大的铅玻璃切伦科夫探测器探测到。介观分子轨道中的介子通过俄歇过程级联到构成原子的原子轨道。原子发生级联过程的几率取决于原子上的原子净电荷。在二元混合气体中，外来粒子在氢轨道上被捕获后形成的&lt；px^-&gt；可以进入杂质气体并将外来粒子转移到原子中。研究发现，这种转移过程强烈地依赖于杂质气体的分子结构。

It is well known that a muon stopped in hydrogen catalytically induces nuclear fusion of deutron and triton. However, basic processes included in the fusion cycle are still an open problem. In our program, we studied the Coulomb capture process of exotic particles of muons and pions into molecular and atomic orbitals, and the transfer process of exotic particles X from a neutral <pX^-> to heavier atoms.The experiments were carried out at the 12 GeV proton synchrotron facility in the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics. Capture probabilities of a pion in respective atoms constituting a molecule were measured by detecting pionic x rays with an intrinsic germanium detector for elements with atomic number Z greater than 2. For hydrogen, a gamma-ray pair from a decaying neutral pion produced through the charge exchange reaction between the pion and a proton were detected with large lead glass Cherenkov detectors.A pion is caught into either an atomic orbital or a large mesomolecular orbital. The pion in mesomolecular orbital cascades down to an atomic orbital of constituting atoms through the Auger process. The probabilities of cascade process to the respective atoms depend on net atomic charges on the atoms.In a binary gas mixture, a small neutral particle of <pX^-> formed following the exotic-particle capture in a hydrogen orbital can get into impurity gas and transfer the exotic particle to the atom. It has been found that this transfer process depends strongly on the molecular structure of the impurity gas.