Laser-induced annihilation: Relativistic particles from ultra-dense hydrogen H(0)

Particle annihilation means that nuclear particles annihilate each other (for example nucleons like a neutron and an anti-neutron) and generate showers of mesons (mainly kaons and pions) at high energy. The kaons decay via pions and muons to electrons, positrons, neutrinos and photons. The energy which can be extracted from the very fast particles is of the order of 50% of the total energy of the nucleon masses involved or 500 MeV per mass unit. Several reports have been published recently on the meson showers ejected by pulsed-laser impact on ultra-dense hydrogen H(0). Since the particle velocities often are relativistic at >100 MeVu⁻¹ it is clear that a much more efficient nuclear process is responsible than in a normal hydrogen isotope fusion process (which can give only 3 and 15 MeV per mass unit out). The first experiment showing heat production above break-even in a laser-induced nuclear process in H(0) was published in AIP Avances as early as 2015. Here, we use a standard method for relativistic particle detection to show that the particles ejected by the laser pulse from D(0) are charged (thus not photons), and in fact positive, and that the signals decay with the characteristic decay times of kaons and pions with uncertainty < 1%. Using the measured kinetic energies of the mesons gives exact energy conservation. We conclude that annihilation of nucleons in H(0) is observed. This may have profound effects on future energy production, since the efficiency of the fuel in annihilation is roughly a factor of 100 higher than in a nuclear fusion process. Ordinary hydrogen (protium and deuterium) can be used as fuel instead of radioactive tritium. This means that energy is generated at low cost and with very little harmful radiation both for terrestrial and space applications (Acta Astronautica 2020).