Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 191–194 (1989)Exact upper bound on barrier penetration probabilities in many-body systems: Application to ‘‘cold fusion’’Received 4 May 1989; published in the issue dated 10 July 1989 The rate of tunneling of nuclei to classically forbidden small relative separation, in a fully interacting quantum-mechanical many-body system in equilibrium, is rigorously bounded above by a value calculable in terms of the Born-Oppenheimer potential between the nuclei. In the ‘‘cold-fusion’’ problem, the bound can be related to the affinities of helium and deuterium atoms to the metal in question, and shows that the allowed rate of tunneling of deuterons is far too small to be consistent with inferred rates of fusion. © 1989 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.191
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.191
PACS:
73.40.Gk, 03.65.-w, 25.45.-z
|
|
About | Terms and Conditions | Subscriptions | Search | Help
Use of the American Physical Society websites and journals implies that the user has read and agrees to our Terms and Conditions and any applicable Subscription Agreement. Physical Review®, Physical Review Letters®, Reviews of Modern Physics®, and Physical Review Special Topics® are trademarks of the American Physical Society.