Some effects on the kinetics of muon-catalyzed fusion

Two important stages in the kinetics of muon-catalyzed d-t fusion are discussed: (1) atomic thermalization and hyperfine-state relaxation preceding molecular formation and (2) muon stripping and x-ray production if sticking occurs after nuclear fusion. Thermalization is accurately treated by Monte Carlo simulation. It is shown that thermalization and triplet quenching of the ..cap alpha mu.. atom may not finish before dt..mu.. formation in low-tritium targets, but that epithermal transients are most important in high-tritium targets. A complete kinetic treatment of muon stripping from ..cap alpha mu.. is made using newly calculated stripping (ionization and charge transfer) and inelastic excitation cross sections and explicitly treating the 2s-2p Stark mixing. The calculated values of the sticking probability and K..cap alpha.. ..cap alpha mu.. x-rays per fusion are ..omega../sub s/ = 0.53% (0.59%) and I/sub K..cap alpha..//chi = 0.23% (0.28%) at density phi = 1.2 (0.1) times liquid-hydrogen density. Sensitivities to the various kinetic rates are evaluated, and error bars are estimated