Muon - Muons

tahanson43206 · 2024-05-15 10:45:51

This topic is inspired by a discovery of research reported by Calliban...

From Google:

1936
The muon was discovered as a constituent of cosmic-ray particle “showers” in 1936 by the American physicists Carl D. Anderson and Seth Neddermeyer.Apr 3, 2024
Muon | Elementary particle, Lepton, Weak interaction | Britannica
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What I vaguely remember from a class on physics is that the lifetime of muons from cosmic ray collisions is that the particles are short lived, but their lifetime is extended by the Einstein space-time effect ... time is slowed for the particles when they are traveling near the speed of light, so they survive long enough to be seen by astronomers on the surface of the Earth. More muons were seen (as i remember) the higher on a mountain the researchers went.

In any case, this topic is offered for NewMars members to report and comment upon research about Muons, or applications of Muons for fusion, or any other practical use.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2024-05-15 10:47:36

This post is reserved for an index to posts that may be contributed by NewMars members over time.

(th)

tahanson43206 · 2024-05-15 10:52:00

The post quoted below is the inspiration for this new topic ... it appears (as I understand the report) that muons may be able to help to solve the (very large) problem of fusion to produce more power than it consumes. In addition (again as I understand the report) it appears that the discovery reported in the linked article offers a way to create tritium, which is a valuable material for energy storage, as well as for fusion.

https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 35#p223035

Calliban wrote:

This article will have gone largely unnoticed in the energy community, but could have revolutionary implications for the future development of nuclear power.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 … 655/abfb4b
Whilst muon catalysed fusion is unlikely to produce a new energy source on its own, it could provide an energy efficient source of high energy neutrons. The 14MeV neutrons produced by D-T fusion will fast-fission any actinide nucleus, including depleted uranium, which Britain, France and the US have in enormous abundance thanks to 80 years of uranium enrichment for weapons and nuclear reactor programmes. Using muon catalysed fusion as a neutron source, would allow the construction of travelling wave reactors, using natural or depleted uranium as fuel, obviating the need for enrichment or fuel reprocessing. This dramatically simplifies the nuclear fuel cycle.
Up until now, fusion-fission hybrids have been discussed theoretically, but fusion has been too technically challenging to deploy as a neutron source in a hybrid reactor. But if the conclusion of this article is to be believed and muon catalysed fusion can at least break even in its stand alone energy gain, then it could provide an efficient source of neutrons driving a travelling wave fission reactor.
I would wager that the Russians and Chinese will have more adptitude developing this technology than any western country. In the western world, political activism has made new nuclear development slow and expensive. That needs to change if are to find a practical replacement for the cheap energy that once was provided by fossil fuels.

(th)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-05-16 01:51:29

I'm not going to say I understand this stuff, that's for people who perhaps worked in that industry or have done studies atomic nuclei and their interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of energy matter interactions. However I do read a lot of energy stuff on the internet,
with Fusion a muon number problem to be solved? I have heard or read or watched video on Meson-catalyzed fusion, muon-catalyzed fusion in ultradense plasma substances, similar to electrons but much more massive and unstable and causing fusion in Liquid Hydrogen? it can be a catalyst for reactions but a lot of energy is consumed to make it so a cheaper source might be found, in space? maybe the reason for cold investment or slowing matter down, something to contain it and have it live longer 2 microseconds.

Cold fusion is more of the realm of scifi, the hypothesized type of nuclear reaction that could occur at, or near, room temperatures. In observation the muon causes deuterium nuclei to be 207 times closer than ordinary gas. There are real people working on this but there is also a lot of 'controversy' Peter L. Hagelstein, between 1989 and 2004, the field became discredited in the eyes of many scientists
People have put careers at risk going down this path of study
'Heating up a cold theory'
https://web.archive.org/web/20040804100 … ld_theory/
MIT professor risks career to reenergize discredited

Virtually all of Hagelstein's problems stem from his study of cold fusion, a type of nuclear reaction that -- if it exists at all -- might have the power to create unlimited, clean energy, essentially on a tabletop. Fifteen years ago, two University of Utah chemists claimed they created such a reaction, an announcement quickly denounced as quackery. Today, cold fusion is as scientifically scorned as UFOs

As I have read or seen in videos stuff that is made at Fermilab or the LHC is also made in outer space, Muons are produced naturally in space in cosmic events

Some radical ideas and fringe groups were accepted as part of the mainstream science SRI International an American nonprofit scientific research institute in Menlo Park, California. Maybe people want to see real results and money, spin-off tech and patent applications. Michael McKubre from New Zealand electrochemist involved with cold fusion energy research, however there have been accidents, a worker scientist killed and experiments after were done behind bulletproof glass, he works with Nuclear Physics scientists in the USA, Japan and Italy.

A British site, the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire

'Our mission is for neutrons and muons to advance knowledge and improve lives.'
https://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/About.aspx

High Yield Muon Catalyzed Fusion & Muonium
https://indico.jlab.org/event/722/contributions/14061/

Muon-Catalyzed Fusion (paywall)
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/j … 189.001523

Future of Experimental Muon Physics
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-9984/8/1/3

A Safer, Smaller, Cleaner Subcritical Thorium Fission—Muonic Fusion Hybrid Reactor
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 … 23.2204996

Until the pure fusion ages come true, present nuclear power is a crucial option if humanity takes aim for a zero net carbon society by the 2050s. A thorium subcritical reactor activated and controlled by muon-catalyzed fusion (MuCF) is an alternative until the completion of the pure fusion reactors. This proposal consists of two main technologies: a steady-state MuCF and the thorium subcritical fission reactor with cascaded neutron multipliers. It will be an environmentally friendly quantum energy source built only by the present science and technologies in a few decades.

Muon Catalyzed Fusion: Introduction, progress toward high-density yield measurements, and application prospects
https://www.psfc.mit.edu/events/2023/mu … ements-and

Abstract: When a muon stops in a mixture of hydrogen isotopes, it can catalyze nuclear fusion reactions at temperatures well below those required for plasma fusion. In dense deuterium-tritium mixtures, the effect is rapid compared to the muon lifetime, and a single muon can catalyze more than 100 fusion reactions. The number of fusion reactions per muon is limited by the muon lifetime and by sticking to charged fusion products.

Our collaboration is working to measure the kinetics and yield of muon-catalyzed fusion at higher temperatures and pressures than have been reached previously. (7 - 1500 K, 0 - 5 GPa) We will use a diamond anvil cell to compress and heat a millimeter-sized volume of liquified hydrogen isotopes. Scintillation counters will register incoming muons from the beamline, outgoing neutrons from the fusion, and outgoing electrons from muon decay. We will compute the cycling rate and sticking fraction for each set of experimental conditions.

In this talk, I will give an overview of muon-catalyzed fusion, describe the aims of our experiment, describe our detector and target systems, show results-to-date from our ongoing experimental campaign at PSI, and discuss plans for upcoming data collection runs. I will also discuss potential commercial applications of muon-catalyzed fusion and give bounds on the energy cost per muon and fusion yield required for electrical power production. This work is supported by ARPA-E, Fermilab, PSI, and NK Labs.

Calliban · 2024-05-16 03:17:31

Muon catalysed fusion (MCF) is a well documented phenomena and has been reproduced many times. It is a different phenomena to the claimed LENR reactions occuring in deuterated metal lattices. So it is not Cold Fusion, although it does fit the name as it takes place in room temperature or cryogenic hydrogen.

It would be difficult to produce a functional fusion powerplant using MCF because of muons have a finite halflife of 2 microseconds and tend to stick to alpha particles after an average of 100 - 350 fusions events. This removes them from the fusion process. Producing muons is energy intensive as it requires accelerating protons into a target at energies of 100s MeV. What this means in practice is that the quantity of energy needed to drive muon production will usually exceed the amount released by fusion. This study suggests that it may be possible to build a MCF system that marginally exceeds break even, producing 14% more energy from fusion than is needed to sustain it.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1 … 655/abfb4b

This still would not be sufficient for a practical standalone MCF powerplant, because the capital cost of a system achieving such a slim energy gain woukd be unaffordable.

But what I suggested in the other thread and MB4M has referenced above, is using MCF as a compact neutron source driving nuclear fission. D-T fusion produces 14MeV neutrons. These neutrons are so energetic, that they will fast-fission just about any actinide nucleus, including 232Th, 238U and other transuranic waste elements, without the need for breeding relying on nuclear transmutation. When a nucleus is fissioned using a neutron of such high energy, it will release several additional neutrons, which may cause secondary fission events or may transmute 232Th into 233U or 238U into 239Pu. So ultimately each fusion event releasing 17MeV of energy, could cause several fission events into a uranium or thorium blanket. Each fission event releases 200MeV of energy. Even if the fusion neutron source never reaches breakeven, the neutrons it releases can drive nuclear fission reactions that produce plenty of excess energy.

The fact that MCF should be able to reach breakeven (though not greatly surpass it), makes it a good candidate for a driving neutron source, because it is technically much easier to build than a tokamak or ICF machine. Laser wakefield generators are being developed which should allow construction of very compact particle accelerators for a fraction of the cost of the magnetic accelerators presently in use. So MCF could be made compact with a relatively low capital cost. It allows us to build nuclear reactors that can use depleted uranium enrichment tailings as fuel. Unlike conventional breeder reactor designs, we don't have problems with doubling time. In a sodium cooled FBR, it can easily take 30 years to produce enough excess plutonium fuel to feed an additional fast reactor. But that isn't an issue for a fusion driven hybrid, because 14MeV neutrons will fast-fission 238U. So there are no limits to the rate of capacity expansion.

A fusion driven hybrid also simplifies the fuel cycle, as we don't need enrichment or reprocessing for this to work. We put DU metal fuel rods into the blanket of the reactor, irradiate them until about 10% of atoms have fissioned and then replace them with fresh DU. If we do have reprocessing, then the spent fuel from a hybrid reactor can be used to provide fuel for downstream conventional fission reactors. Hence a single 1GWe hybrid, could produce enough fissile plutonium in spent fuel to fuel several 1GWe boiling water reactors in a closed fuel cycle. In addition to producing power, a hybrid functions as a nuclear fuel factory.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-05-16 03:48:38)

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#1 2024-05-15 10:45:51

Muon - Muons

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