Re: Real Cold Fusion

[Jacques.Read@eh.doe.gov]

Perhaps one reason why people were more gullible about cold fusion was that Luis
Alvarez at Berkeley published in 1957 the discovery of mu-meson catalyzed
deuterium fusion.  His group had observed tracks in a liquid hydrogen bubble
chamber that showed a mu-minus meson being stopped and captured by a D-D
molecule.  The muon, as a negative lepton, replaced an electron, but having 450
times the mass was able to bind the two deuterium nuclei together with 450 times
the force.  The vibrational modes of the molecule were enough to defeat the
Coulomb barrier in a few vibrations, and fusion resulted.  In some instances,
the same muon was able to catalyze several molecules before decaying.
Unfortunately, muons are short-lived, so nothing commercial ever came out of it,
but the effect exists.  (Also, of course, the 20 MeV per fusion pay-back isn't
enough to support the several hundred MeV needed to make the muon.)



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