H-H dipole interactions in fcc metals

Abstract

It is observed that interstitial hydrogen nucleii on a metallic lattice are strongly coupled to their near neighbours by the unscreened electromagnetic field mediating transitions between low-lying states. It is shown that the dominant interaction is of dipole-dipole character. By means of numerical calculations based upon published data, it is then shown that in stoichiometric PdD, in which essentially all interstitial sites are occupied by a deuteron, certain specific superpositions of many-site product states exist that are lower in energy than the single-site ground state, suggesting the existence of a new low temperature phase. Finally, the modified behaviour of the two-particle wavefunction at small separations is investigated and prelimary results suggesting a radical narrowing of the effective Coulomb barrier are presented.