Time-of-flight studies of muon catalyzed fusion with a muonic tritium beam

In this thesis, we establish a new approach in muon catalyzed fusion studies, the time-of- flight method with an atomic beam of muonic tritium, and report results for muonic tritium scattering and epithermal dμt resonant formation, providing the first quantitatve measurements on these reactions. Emission of muonic tritium from a solid hydrogen thin film into vacuum was observed via imaging of muon decay electrons, and the measurement of the position and the time of muon decay provided spectroscopic evidence for the Ramsauer-Townsend effect in the μt + p interaction. The RT minimum energy was determined to be 13.6 ±1.0 eV, in fair agreement with quantum three body calculations. Using this μt beam, we have confirmed theoretical μt + d scattering cross sections to an accuracy of 10% by measuring the attenuation of μt through a deuterium layer. The importance of p-wave scattering in the μt + d interaction, as suggested by the theory, was also confirmed by our data via comparisons with Monte Carlo calculations assuming different scattering angular distributions. The existence of a predicted resonance for dμt formation in μt + D₂ collisions was directly confirmed for the first time. Our results correspond to a peak resonance rate of (8.7 ± 2.1) x 10⁹ s⁻¹ in Faifman's model, more than an order of magnitude larger than the room temperature rates, and indicate a resonance energy of 0.42 ± 0.04 eV for the F=l resonance peak in ortho deuterium. Assuming the theoretical [(dμt)dee] energy spectrum, these results imply sensitivity to the binding energy of the loosely bound state of the dμt molecule, with an accuracy approaching the magnitude of the relativistic and… QED effects.Science, Faculty ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofGraduat