1. Preface to the First Edition of Discovery of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon ‐ Development of Solid State-Nuclear Physics and Energy Crisis in the 21^st Century

2. Cold Fusion in 2000

1. Preface to the First Edition of

Discovery of the Cold Fusion Phenomenon ‐ Development of Solid State-Nuclear Physics and Energy Crisis in the 21^st Century ‐ (Ohtake Shuppan Inc., 1998)

Hideo Kozima, Shizuoka University

In the middle of April 1989 I received two papers from Dr. Tsutomu Tanaka*{}. He assisted me in making this English version by translating Chapters 1 to 5.}, a graduate of our laboratory, who was a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin at that time. These were copies of preprints by M. Fleischmann and S. Pons in University of Utah and by S.E. Jones et al. at Brigham Young University. Those preprints of papers submitted to scientific journals had been rapidly faxed around the world and Dr. Tanaka kindly sent copies to me in Japan. This was quite different from the usual scientific information, but I think the news about the discovery of high-temperature superconductors which had shocked the scientific world about a year before somewhat had prepared us for paradigm shifts.

I was excited when I read the preprints even though newspaper articles had prepared me a couple weeks earlier. That memory still remains vividly in my mind.

*{Now in Applied Materials, Inc., USA

I decided to check the results obtained by Jones et al., which seemed as if they would be simpler to replicate than those of Pons and Fleischmann. I asked radiochemists Professor K. Hasegawa and Dr. H. Suganuma of Laboratory of Radiochemistry and electrochemist Mr. S. Oe of Department of Chemistry to cooperate with me in the experiment. Mr. Oe had a small palladium plate, a remnant of materials used in an experiment done many years ago. A neutron survey meter was borrowed from Chubu Electric Power Co. Heavy water was bought for 15,000 yens for 100 ml. As an electrolyte we had to use a simple compound LiOH instead of a complex mixture containing several compounds, as recommended in the Jones paper.

During the experiment, with a current 〜 200 mA (〜 4 mA/cm^{2}) and voltages of 20 〜 30 V with a Pd 5 × 5 cm^{2} cathode, we observed neutron emissions of about twice the background level (1 〜 2 counts per 10 minutes) after about 6 to 7 hours. Dr. Suganuma searched through the Chemical Abstracts papers for relevant information and found papers published in 1926 〜 1927 by F. Paneth et al.

This was my first encounter with the cold fusion phenomenon.

Our experiment did not continue long since the Pd plate was exhausted after several 8-hour runs. It deformed and swelled, and then did not show any further excess neutron emissions. We tried a new Pd plate, which appeared different in color and shine, but it produced only background neutron counts.

The Third International Conference on the Cold Fusion (ICCF3) was held in Nagoya, Japan in October 1992. The Conference has been held every year or two since 1990. The first was held in Salt Lake City in March 1990, the second in Como, Italy in June 1991. Unfortunately I had no detailed information about the first two conferences or the data that was presented, so the conference in Nagoya was a revelation to me.

There was great enthusiasm for a new science that was just being born. There was, of course, much criticism of the experimental data presented at the conference, but we knew we had to tolerate some inevitable errors. An impressive scene that will never forgotten was when Professor Kodi Husimi (a former Head of the Plasma Laboratory, Nagoya University and a former President of the Science Council of Japan) gave a short speech at the reception where he expressed his enthusiasm for the new science, saying that scientists in this hall had the true scientific spirit.

The Proceedings of this Conference {\it Frontiers of Cold Fusion}, edited by Professor H. Ikegami, and published immediately after the Conference, has been a Bible to me. The data published in these Proceedings are a treasured resource of the cold fusion phenomenon. From my understanding of physics and my preliminary calculations done in 1989, it seemed to me that some agents must catalyze the cold fusion phenomenon.

This thought was supported by a lecture of Professor V.I. Ginsburg of Lebedev Institute of Physics, Russian Academy of Science, at Nishina Symposium of Riken*{} in October 1991. This was in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of the late Dr. Yoshio Nishina, the founder of atomic physics in Japan. Dr. Ginzburg explained that it is necessary to use a phenomenological approach for investigating the high-temperature superconductor phenomenon in its present stage of investigation.

*{The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan}

His confidence in his opinion was based on the brilliant tradition of Russian science, which has provided excellent models in physics history, such as two-fluid model of super-fluidity and Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity.

At the Fourth International Conference on the Cold Fusion (ICCF4), held in Maui, Hawaii, in December 1993, I presented a paper, "Trapped Neutron Catalyzed Fusion of Deuterons and Protons in Inhomogeneous Solids," which had been developed a couple of months before the Conference. The cold fusion phenomenon data went round and around in my brain and finally I saw pieces of the puzzle coming together which might explain the cold fusion phenomenon.

The Kamiokande experiment, performed in a laboratory about 1000 m underground in Kamioka, Gifu, Japan in cooperation with Prof. S.E. Jones and researchers from The University of Tokyo, gave me an important hint. The Kamiokande data showed that there was no effect without background neutrons. Background neutrons have thus become a key agent of my model.

One important aspect of the cold fusion phenomenon is the poor reproducibility, or even we can say, irreproducibility. This irreproducibility had many critics denying the cold fusion phenomenon itself. When I talked with researchers engaged in this field, I heard that almost all of them have had the experience of obtaining positive results, but with poor reproducibility. This was most puzzling. If I had not obtained my initial positive results, I probably wouldn't have persisted investigating this curious new phenomenon as strongly. Thus, I attacked the problem of irreproducibility with my model, using the background neutrons as a catalyst. It is well known that atomic processes in materials are not yet fully understood.

I studied physics in Graduate School under Professor Toshinosuke Muto of The University of Tokyo. He was a rare Japanese physicist who worked both in solid state physics and in nuclear physics, claiming that all physics is one. In his laboratory, Saturday Seminar was open for scientists in both solid state and nuclear physics. I had chosen the solid state physics in the Graduate School but listened to presentations both in the solid state and nuclear physics in the Seminar, so I'm comfortable with both fields.

To start the construction of a model using the idea of thermal neutrons as a catalyst I asked the help of my friends and acquaintances. Dr. K. Sasaki of JAERI**{} helped me in neutron physics. Dr. M. Koike of Kakuken**{} and Dr. K. Kaki of our department helped me in nuclear physics. Professor T. Yoneyama helped me in elementary particle physics. Professor T. Ishidate was most interested in the idea and encouraged me through the work.

*{Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute.}

**{Research Institute of Atomic Nucleus, The University of Tokyo.}

It is a common experience for many that a change of the point of view makes the scenery very different. It is the same in scientific research, as is well known with the example of the Copernican revolutionary the view of the universe. If we assume an existence of thermal neutrons in an appropriate material, almost all the riddles of the cold fusion phenomenon disappear: the fact that there was no excess heat generation in Ti system, but neutrons was explained by such a long decay distance of gamma ray in it as 8 cm compared with 2 cm in Pd. The excess heat-neutron anomaly could be explained by strong capture of neutrons in certain materials. The generation of ^{4}He could be explained easily by n - ^{6}Li and t - d reactions. Thus, the cold fusion phenomenon occurs not only in a deuterium system but also in a protium system, which was considered dubious even by the cold fusion researchers at that time.

The irreproducibility could be explained by the variable nature of atomic processes producing the optimum conditions for neutron trapping. These forecasts have been revised after a careful examination of the experimental data and the conditions controlling the events in the cold fusion phenomenon.

The idea of the neutron band in a crystal was in my mind when I was preparing my paper to present at ICCF5 held in 1995, in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. The trapping of neutrons, the lengthening of decay time of neutrons, and possible reactions of neutrons with other nuclei are necessary conditions for my so-called TNCF model to explain various events in the cold fusion phenomenon. About the first condition, trapping, the neutron band can give a hopeful mechanism to trap neutrons in a solid surrounded by another with a different band structure.

By the end of 1995, an answer to the second condition, the lengthening of the neutron decay time, was found. The idea of the neutron affinity of nuclei was hit upon in analogy with the electron affinity of atoms. If there are trapped neutrons in a solid and if the neutron affinity of nuclei in the solid is positive, the neutron is rather stable and tends to remain there rather than to decay into a proton and electron (and neutrino).

It should be noticed here that this stability of a trapped neutron against the beta decay is not the same as the stability against fusion with one of lattice nuclei interacting with it.

The third condition mentioned above, reactions with other nuclei, relates with this interaction of trapped neutrons and one of lattice nuclei.

This interaction was assumed to explain nuclear products from the beginning of the model's formulation; the trapped neutrons become unstable due to their excitation and perform ordinary nuclear reactions with any nucleus causing the excitation. These assumptions on the nature of the trapped neutrons are formulated as basis for the TNCF model.

The TNCF model was formulated in the autumn of 1995, though some revisions have had to be made to fit the model to new experimental data. The essential point of the model is that it includes only one adjustable parameter, with some premises about properties of the trapped neutrons. Using the model, various experimental results obtained in various systems have been analyzed, and all give a consistent explanation of the results using an adjustable parameter \enuenu between 10^{8} 〜 10＾{13} cm＾{-3}. At ICCF6 in 1996 in Hokkaido, Japan, those results were presented. The new data presented at ICCF6 by many careful researchers from around the world were immediately analyzed using the TNCF model and the results were published in several journals. At ICCF7 held in 1998, in Vancouver, Canada, the most recent version of the TNCF model was presented.

This book is a result of our work during these nine years, including a preliminary period from 1989 to 1995. Most of the material in this book has been developed during the last three years. There still remains the job of providing the microscopic support for the TNCF model, which could take several years.

Meanwhile, it should be helpful to experimentalists and theoreticians to have a one-volume review of the reported experimental results and an analysis using a proposed model, even though only about 50 experimental results have been analyzed using the model. We can draw a picture of a new science \haihun solid state-nuclear physics \haihun based on the discovery and development of the cold fusion phenomenon.

The Japanese version of this book was published with a hard cover and color portraits of my friend researchers in March 1997. This version is intended to be more academic as an aid to researchers around the world. Articles concerned with science education in Japan are omitted in this English version. Dr. W. Green of LDI Ltd. USA read manuscript of Preface and Chapter 14 of this version and corrected inappropriate expressions in English. Dr. T. Tanaka of Applied Materials Inc. USA helped in translation of Chapters 1 〜 5. The author would like to express his thanks to them though final responsibility on entire book is authors.

The author is grateful to all people who helped him in research explicitly and implicitly through these nine years. Especially mentioned are cooperation and help by the late Dr. M. Okamoto of Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tohoku Univ., Dr. A. Takahashi of Osaka Univ., Dr. K. Sasaki of JAERI, Dr. H. Ikegami of Research Institute of Plasma Science, Dr. K. Hasegawa of Shizuoka Univ., Dr. H. Yamada of Iwate Univ., Dr. W. Green of LDI Ltd. (USA), Dr. P. Gluck in Romania, Dr. F. Celani of INFN (Italy), Dr. Y. Badhutov of Moscow Univ. and Dr. I. Savvatimova of Lutch in Russia, Dr. M. McKubre of SRI Int. and Dr. E. Storms in USA.

He would like to express his thanks to people who contributed essays on science and technology, cited in Chapter 16 of this book, on the 10th anniversary of cold fusion. He is also grateful to his friend, Professor S. Nishio of Nihon University, who gave him correct information described in Chapter 10 (Section 10.4) about the historical situation when Bohr's model was proposed.

He is also indebted to Dr. T. Tamaribuchi of our Department helping him in use of \LaTeX to edit papers and books over these more than 10 years and Prof. T. Ishidate for his encouragement during this work. Graduate students of my laboratory K. Arai, M. Fujii, H. Kudoh and K. Yoshimoto helped me in research of CF and in editing this book.

August 6, 1998

In Laboratory of Physics, Shizuoka University

KOZIMA Hideo

2. Cold Fusion in 2000^{*}

Hideo Kozima

After publication of the first edition of this book in August 1998, there are some changes in atmosphere around us engaging in cold fusion research.

First of all, it has been widely recognized that the cold fusion phenomenon (CFP) occurs really with qualitative reproducibility but is very complicated one occurring in a complex system, i.e. in compound systems composed of solids (mainly transition metals) including hydrogen isotopes (not only deuterium but also protium) and having some undetermined characteristics. The events of the CFP observed by scientific techniques are composed of the excess heat, tritium, helium-4, neutron and the nuclear transmutation (NT). The Nuclear Transmutation has been remarked in these several years as an evidence showing locality of the CF reactions near surface area of the cathode in electrolytic experiments and also as a possible technique to eliminate hazardous radioactivity of nuclear wastes.

Second, the change in our research world occurred in recognition of the protium system as one of hydrogen isotopes capable to afford the CFP. This recognition reflected in the effort of theoretical works to explain events in the CFP. Mainstream of theoretical effort is moved to search for some characteristic catalyst in the experimental system to affect nuclear reactions in solids. The most popular ones in many attempts are, of course, neutral particles not affected by the Coulomb barrier between charged particles. The most natural candidate of them is neutron taken up in the TNCF model proposed by the present author in 1993.

Third, a topic in Japan is establishment of Japan CF-research Society (JCF) as an organization of researchers in this field for communication among members and with foreign organizations and also with personnel to promote cold fusion research and development. Some materials of JCF are given in Appendix (Chapter 17, Section 17.9).

The essay by Late Prof. M. Okamoto written for the Japanese version of this book and printed in Chapter 16 of the first edition translated by the author is moved to the top of this second edition. Instead, a sentence written by him for a special issue "Cold Fusion" of a Journal published in Japan is edited in Chapter 16 by the permission of the publisher of the Journal.

In the first edition of this book, there are more than 50 data sets analyzed using the TNCF model with success and consistency between them. There has been lack of weight in data treatment due to the author's limited ability to collect papers in a local University of Japan. Valuable suggestions and critiques, especially by J.O'M. Bockris, on the content of the first edition made these defects largely repaired in this second edition. There is also our effort to make the TNCF model a theory by exploration of physical basis for the premises assumed in the model. Several results of analyses for remained excellent data sets and for new ones are added in this version making the number of analyzed data almost 60.

In the progress of the model, it should be emphasized a role of hint given by the work of J.C. Fisher who explained the mass spectra of the nuclear products using an idea of polyneutron to supply necessary number of neutrons to a lattice nucleus to induce fission resulting finally in the observed nuclei. Fisher's treatment is a natural extension of the treatment in the TNCF model where only one neutron has been taken up to induce nuclear reactions resulting in the final products in accordance with many experimental results.

Looking for the existence of the polyneutron and the extremely neutron-rich nuclei assumed by J.C. Fisher, the concepts in premises of the TNCF model has been taken up and extended its inclusion. Existence of the exotic nuclei as ¹⁰He, ¹¹Li, ³²Na, and so on suggested strong mutual attraction between neutrons in highly neutron-rich situation when they approach close each other. The one-body approximation has been used in the previous description of the trapped neutrons in solids. The neutron band, local coherence and neutron affinity, for instance, are concepts based on the one-body approximation and have to be altered from the viewpoint of many-body treatment including the strong interaction between neutrons.

It is not the stage of microscopic theory but phenomenological one of the CFP at present, in my opinion, and we have to be content with a model explanation constructed on experimental facts of events in the CFP. Success of unified explanation for various events using the extended TNCF model depicts outline of the physics of a system composed of thermal neutrons and composite solids with hydrogen isotopes. This edition provides rather enlarged introduction of experimental results and their explanation based on the TNCF model. There are also investigations of physical concepts related with ideas and premises used in the model based on the present quantum mechanics. The author is on the viewpoint that the CFP is one in solid state-nuclear physics catalyzed by trapped thermal neutrons in composite solids where the neutron drop (neutron cluster and/or neutron-proton (deuteron) cluster) plays the principal role.

The trapped neutrons accumulated in the boundary region with hydrogen isotopes in the center of or around them will compose a collective phase (the neutron drop) where the strong interaction between nucleons works as a binding force in the localized region with a sub-macroscopic size.

Revisions made in this Edition are in Chapters 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12 except those mentioned above.

Clarification of the mysterious facts in the CFP and establishment of its physics will make the application of this phenomenon accelerate very much. Resolution of energy problem and also environmental crisis will be in our hand in near future using the techniques based on the CFP. Hazardous radioactive products will be treated safely until new energy source is cultivated. Wisdom of mankind should be used constructively now for prosperous and harmonious future of the earth.

The author would like to express his thanks to people who have given comments and critique to the first edition of this book, which made the second edition less incomplete. Dr. J.O'M. Bockris wrote an essay for the second edition. Dr. D. Blitz is the first who read the book and recognized its value as a phenomenological approach to the CF phenomenon. Relevant parts of his book review are reproduced in Appendix (Chap. 17, §17.8). There is an introduction of the TNCF model in Cold Fusion Times by anonymous writer, which is reproduced also in Appendix (§17.8) because it summarize the TNCF model correctly and compactly.

January 1, 2000

Cold Fusion Research Laboratory, Yatsu, Shizuoka

*{Preface to the Second Edition of Discovery planned to be published recent ly.}