Enhancement of the Deuteron-Fusion Reactions in Metals and its Experimental Implications

Recent measurements of the reaction d(d,p)t in metallic environments at very low energies performed by different experimental groups point to an enhanced electron screening effect. However, the resulting screening energies differ strongly for divers host metals and different experiments. Here, we present new experimental results and investigations of interfering processes in the irradiated targets. These measurements inside metals set special challenges and pitfalls which make them and the data analysis particularly error-prone. There are multi-parameter collateral effects which are crucial for the correct interpretation of the observed experimental yields. They mainly originate from target surface contaminations due to residual gases in the vacuum as well as from inhomogeneities and instabilities in the deuteron density distribution in the targets. In order to address these problems an improved differential analysis method beyond the standard procedures has been implemented. Profound scrutiny of the other experiments demonstrates that the observed unusual changes in the reaction yields are mainly due to deuteron density dynamics simulating the alleged screening energy values. The experimental results are compared with different theoretical models of the electron screening in metals. The Debye-H\"{u}ckel model that has been previously proposed to explain the influence of the electron screening on both nuclear reactions and radioactive decays could be clearly excluded.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, REVTeX4, 2-column format. Submitted to Phys. Rev. C; accepte

Single Particle Tracking for Simultaneous Long and Short Electron Bunches in the BESSY II Storage Ring

A scheme where 1.5 ps and 15 ps long bunches rms can be stored simultaneously in the BESSY II storage ring has recently been proposed BESSYVSR . This paper presents simulations of single particle beam dynamics influenced by superconducting cavities used for the strong longitudinal beam focusing. The effect of RF jitter on very short bunches is investigated and results are discussed. Furthermore, possible effects on beam dynamics during ramp up and ramp down of the high gradient fields in the cavities are studied. The primary goal is to reveal preliminary design specifications for RF jitter on the basis of single particle dynamic

The 198Au beta-half-life in the metal Au revisited

The half-life of the beta-decay of 198Au has been measured for room temperature and 12 K. The resulting values of T(RT) = 2.684 +- 0.004 d and T(12 K) = 2.687 +- 0.005 d agree well within statistical uncertainties. An evidence for a temperature dependence of the half-life was not observed.Comment: accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

Order Parameter at the Boundary of a Trapped Bose Gas

Through a suitable expansion of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation near the classical turning point, we obtain an explicit solution for the order parameter at the boundary of a trapped Bose gas interacting with repulsive forces. The kinetic energy of the system, in terms of the classical radius $R$ and of the harmonic oscillator length $a_{_{HO}}$, follows the law $E_{kin}/N \propto R^{-2} [\log (R/a_{_{HO}}) + \hbox{const.}]$, approaching, for large $R$, the results obtained by solving numerically the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. The occurrence of a Josephson-type current in the presence of a double trap potential is finally discussed.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, 4 figures (uuencoded-gzipped-tar file) also available at http://anubis.science.unitn.it/~dalfovo/papers/papers.htm

Ground-State Properties of a Rotating Bose-Einstein Condensate with Attractive Interaction

The ground state of a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with attractive interaction in a quasi-one-dimensional torus is studied in terms of the ratio $\gamma$ of the mean-field interaction energy per particle to the single-particle energy-level spacing. The plateaus of quantized circulation are found to appear if and only if $\gamma<1$ with the lengths of the plateaus reduced due to hybridization of the condensate over different angular-momentum states.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Reveiw Letter

Influence of Transient Beam Loading on the Longitudinal Beam Dynamics at BESSY VSR

BESSY VSR, a scheme where 1.7 ps and 15 ps long bunches rms can be stored simultaneously in the BESSY II storage ring has recently been proposed [1]. The strong longitudinal bunch focusing is achieved by superconducting high gradient RF cavities. If the bunch fill pattern exhibits a significant inhomogeneity, e.g. due to gaps, transient beam loading causes a distortion of the longitudinal phase space which is different for each bunch. The result are variations along the fill pattern in synchronous phase, synchrotron fre quency and bunch shape. This paper presents investigations of transient beam loading and depicts the consequences on bunch length, phase stability and longitudinal multi bunch oscillations for the projected setup of BESSY VS

Moment of Inertia and Superfluidity of a Trapped Bose Gas

The temperature dependence of the moment of inertia of a dilute Bose gas confined in a harmonic trap is determined. Deviations from the rigid value, due to the occurrence of Bose-Einstein condensation, reveal the superfluid behaviour of the system. In the noninteracting gas these deviations become important at temperatures of the order of $T_c N^{-1/12}$. The role of interactions is also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, REVTEX, 1 figure attached as postscript fil