Survey of muon stripping in the muon-catalyzed $d-d$ fusion cycle in pure deuterium

Abstract

Muon-catalyzed fusion is a very efficient nuclear fusion method to which a wide variety of experimental and theoretical studies have been devoted in recent years. The mixtures of hydrogen isotopes are the most appropriate particles to do this kind of fusion. The efficiency of muon-catalyzed fusion in mixtures of pure deuterium is due to the abundance of this isotope as compared to other hydrogen isotopes. The most important issue of reducing the efficiency of the muon-catalyzed fusion chain in pure deuterium mixtures is the probability of muons sticking to the helium-3 particle produced after the d − d nuclear fusion reaction. In this investigation, the density dependence of the slowing down, muon stripping, and effective sticking in pure deuterium fuel are presented by considering all possible effective processes and solving a set of coupled differential equations. The results show that our calculated values are in agreement with available experimental and theoretical data.