2012 –
J Cruz1,2 , H Lu´ıs1,2 , M Fonseca1,2 and A P Jesus1,2 1 Departamento de F´ısica da Faculdade de Ciˆencias e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal 2 Centro de F´ısica Nuclear da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal E-mail: jdc@fct.unl.pt
Electron screening for nuclear reactions in metals plays an unexpected and important role in enhancing reaction cross sections in the ultra-low energy region. Even though there are still some discrepancies between experimental data from different authors, the enhanced screening effect in metallic environments is well established, and attributed to the quasi-free valence electrons in the metals. However, there is still no solid theory which can describe quantitatively the observed enhancements. In the present work, experimental and theoretical results obtained so far will be overviewed, and a proposal to improve our knowledge on this subject.
EFS Comments: We have identified ~.8kev of screening using available computational resources. We are aware of effects that will be observed in a RM state that will further modify the burn rate. More research and modeling is required.
