There is a claim often made about cold fusion, that it is excluded theoretically. The main theoretical argument is that electronic energies are too low to overcome the Coulomb barrier, since d-d fusion only takes place at KeV energies, while chemistry is at eV energies.
This is belied by inner shells, which in Palladium store 3 or 20 KeV of energy per ejected electron, depending on whether the first or second shell is excited. These inner shell vacancies can decay either by x-rays, or by absorbing an electron into the vacancy and simultaneously ejecting a different electron (this second process is electrostatic). The cross section for ejecting a deuteron with tens of KeV's instead of an electron should be larger, since a deuterium is heavier. So I believe deuterated metal with excited inner shells has KeV deuterons running around.
If two KeV deuterons do a fusion to an alpha in a dense environment, close to a nucleus or to an electron, I don't know why the process cannot end without a proton or neutron ejected. There are electrostatic matrix elements that allow an unstable alpha-resonance to decay by giving its energy to a charged particle nearby, instead of ejecting a constituent.
After a fusion, the resulting alpha leaves an energetic track behind, and charged particles leave behind trails of atoms with ejected inner-shell electrons. So the K-shell holes produce fast deuterons, and fusion in deuterons produces K-shell holes. I don't see why this can't make a chain reaction.
I have explained this idea before. I would like to know whether somebody knows a sound theoretical argument which rules it out. Can such a chain reaction in a Pd be excluded theoretically? I am not asking if it is likely, I am asking whether it can be firmly theoretically excluded.
Anna v. asks how this process gets started--- it requires a random charged particle to pass through the deuterated material, from spontaneous environmental radioactive decay, or a cosmic ray muon. Charged particles produce K-shell holes.
To make my biases clear: I can't exclude it. Regardless of the quality of the experiments, I don't see an argument against cold fusion.
