Chemical and nuclear catalysis driven by localized anharmonic vibrations

Abstract

In many-body nonlinear systems with sufficient anharmonicity, a special kind of lattice vibrations, namely, Localized Anharmonic Vibrations (LAV) can be excited either thermally or by external triggering, in which the amplitude of atomic oscillations greatly exceeds that of harmonic oscillations (phonons) that determine the system temperature. Coherency and persistence of LAV may have drastic effect on chemical and nuclear reaction rates due to time-periodic modulation of reaction sites. One example is a strong acceleration of chemical reaction rates driven by thermally-activated 'jumps' over the reaction barrier due to the time-periodic modulation of the barrier height in the LAV vicinity. At sufficiently low temperatures, the reaction rate is controlled by quantum tunneling through the barrier rather than by classical jumping over it. A giant increase of sub-barrier transparency was demonstrated for a parabolic potential well with the time-periodic eigenfrequency, when the modulation frequency exceeds the eigenfrequency by a factor of ~2 (parametric regime). Such regime can be realized for a hydrogen or deuterium atom in metal hydrides/deuterides, such as NiH or PdD, in the vicinity of LAV. We present an analytical solution of the Schrödinger equation for a nonstationary harmonic oscillator, analyze the parametric regime in details and discuss its applications to the tunnel effect and to D-D fusion in PdD lattice. We obtain simple analytical expressions for the increase of amplitude and energy of zero-point oscillations (ZPO) induced by the parametric modulation. Based on that, we demonstrate a drastic increase of the D-D fusion rate with increasing number of modulation periods evaluated in the framework of Schwinger model, which takes into account suppression of the Coulomb barrier due to lattice vibrations.

On the extreme variants of nuclear fusion realization

“…Though the isotope composition of elements was not studied in [3], we can note that carbon and silicon, as mentioned above, possess isotopes with α-clustered nuclei, and iron has an isotope that can be naturally considered to be genetically bound with α-clustered nuclei 28 Ni 56 (k = 14) having undergone a double β-decay. Hence the oxygen included in water molecules (as a rule, 8 …”

“…Obviously, the essential role should be given in this case to the control of quantum fluctuations, as according to [7], the state of α-clustered nucleus matter is sensitive to infinitesimal change of the locality degree of nucleon-nucleon interaction, so that quantum fluctuations can initiate an analogue of phase transition «liquid -gase». It's useful to note that adequate variants of description of tunneling have appeared also for solid state [8]; it is accompanied by sharp increase of the barrier transparency, capable to explain low-energy nuclear reactions with hydrogen isotopes participation.…”

Radiation-induced catalysis of low energy nuclear reactions in solids

“…LAV can be excited thermally or by external driving, resulting in a catalytic acceleration of chemical reaction rates in their vicinity. What is more, recently, LAV have been proposed as catalysts of nuclear D-D fusion in palladium deuteride under heavy water electrolysis [Dubinko, 2014[Dubinko, , 2015Dubinko and Laptev, 2016]. Electric current producing the flux of D-ions through the Pd surface was shown to be a driver of the LAV generation under electrolysis conditions, which triggered the D-D fusion.…”

“…On the other hand, the main triggering method of low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) in hydrogenated metals according to the method by Rossi [2015] and its successful replications [e.g., [Parkhomov, 2015;Mills, 2015]) consists in the heating of the fuel mixture up to temperatures typically exceeding 1000 • C. According to the LENR model [Dubinko, 2014[Dubinko, , 2015Dubinko and Laptev, 2016], heating is needed to increase the concentration of LAV in the lattice, which act as catalysts of LENR due to the time-periodic modulation of the potential wells where protons or deuterons are trapped. The parametric modulation increases the zero-point oscillation amplitude, which drastically enhances the fusion rate, according to the modified model [Dubinko and Laptev, 2016] originally proposed by a Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger [Schwinger, 1990a[Schwinger, , 1990b.…”

“…The parametric modulation increases the zero-point oscillation amplitude, which drastically enhances the fusion rate, according to the modified model [Dubinko and Laptev, 2016] originally proposed by a Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger [Schwinger, 1990a[Schwinger, , 1990b. The model takes into account suppression of the Coulomb barrier due to lattice vibrations that consume nuclear energy directly, which explains the absence of substantial radioactivity in LENR.…”