Experimental determination of the electron screening potential energy for the d(d, n)^sup 3^He Reaction in ZrD^sub 2^ and D^sub 2^O in the ultralow energy region

• Published in: Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Physics Vol. 74; no. 11; p. 1570
• Main Authors: Bystritsky, V M, Gerasimov, V V, Il'guzin, D A, Krylov, A R, Parzhitskii, S S, Anan'in, P S, Dudkin, G N, Kaminskii, V L, Nechaev, B A, Padalko, V N, Petrov, A V, Filipowicz, M, Wozniak, J, Bystritskii, Vit M, Tuleushev, Yu Zh
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer Nature B.V 01.11.2010
• Subjects: Collision dynamics; Deuterium; Deuterons; Energy measurement; Freezing; Heavy water; Magnetron sputtering; Nuclear physics; Plasma (physics); Potential energy; Screening; Upper bounds; Zirconium
• ISSN: 1062-8738; 1934-9432
• DOI: 10.3103/S106287381011016X

This work is devoted to measuring of the values of the astrophysical S-factors and electron screening potential energy for a d(d,n)3He reaction occurring at ultralow energies in zirconium deuteride ZrD2 (3.5-7.0 keV) and heavy water D2O (2.2-6.0 keV). The experiment was performed on the Hall pulsed plasma accelerator at the TPU Nuclear Physics Institute (Tomsk) with ZrD2 and D2O targets produced by the magnetron sputtering of zirconium in a deuterium environment and heavy water freezing-out on a copper support, respectively. A χ 2 analysis of the dependence of the neutron yields and astrophysical S-factors for the dd reaction on the deuteron collision energy E revealed that the upper bounds of the electron screening potential energy for interacting deuterons in ZrD2 and D2O and of the astrophysical S-factors at the deuteron collision energy E = 0 were U e(ZrD2) < 30 eV, U e(D2O) < 25 eV, S(0) = (57.2 ± 3.9) keV · b (ZrD2), S(0) = (58.6 ± 3.6) keV · b (D2O) at the 90% confidence level.