Electron Capture in a Fully Ionized Plasma

Abstract

Properties of fully ionized water plasmas are discussed including plasma charge density oscillations and the screening of the Coulomb law especially in the dilute classical Debye regime. A kinetic model with two charged particle scattering events determines the transition rate per unit time for electron capture by a nucleus with the resulting nuclear transmutations. Two corrections to the recent Maiani et al. calculations are made: (i) The Debye screening length is only employed within its proper domain of validity. (ii) The WKB approximation employed by Maiani in the long De Broglie wave length limit is evidently invalid. We replace this incorrect approximation with mathematically rigorous Calogero inequalities in order to discuss the scattering wave functions. Having made these corrections, we find a verification for our previous results based on condensed matter electro-weak quantum field theory for nuclear transmutations in chemical batteries.