Non-Nucleon Metastable Excitations in Nuclear Matter and e– Catalysis As a Quark-Cumulative Mechanism for Initiating Low-Energy Nuclear Chemical Processes: Phenomenology

The present study demonstrates that the mechanism of initiation of low-energy nuclear chemical processes under conditions of low-temperature non-equilibrium deuterium and protium-containing glow discharge plasma is similar to the previously studied cumulative mechanism of initiation of nuclear processes in the collision of relativistic particles (protons) with target atomic nuclei. This process results in the formation of high-energy products that significantly exceed the kinematically resolved region in the pulse space for two-particle collisions “nucleus–target’s nucleus.” The cumulative effect in this case is associated with the initiation of non-nucleonic metastable excitations in nuclear matter during relativistic collisions leading to the formation of a group of quarks from different nucleons within the nucleus. In low-energy nuclear chemical processes, the initiation of quark-cumulative processes in nuclear matter occurs through interaction of nuclei with electrons with high kinetic energies on a chemical scale, typically E_e ~ 3–5 eV. Experiments and available literature data suggest that the metastable excitations of nuclear matter containing three “free” quarks during such collisions are associated with quark-cumulative effects, leading to the radioactive α- and β-decay of elements. This phenomenon is observed during laser ablation of metals in aqueous media containing radioactive elements and in the artificial radioactivity of initially non-radioactive isotopes in cathodes exposed to low-temperature non-equilibrium deuterium- and protium-containing plasma flows during glow discharge.