Tritium measurements in acoustic cavitation nuclear emission experiments

Full text of publication follows: Measurements of tritium produced in controlled experiments to investigate nuclear reactions during acoustic cavitation of deuterated acetone have been reported by Taleyarkhan, et. al., in Science, March 2002. Experiments to reproduce some of the results reported by Taleyarkhan have been performed at Purdue University. The experiments were made using isotopic neutron sources for initiating cavitation in properly de-gassed deuterated and normal acetone. Samples from pre-cavitation and post-cavitation acetone were measured for tritium content with a Perkin Elmer/Packard 1900 Tri-Carb Liquid Scintillation Counter and a Beckman LS 6500 Counter. While some of the preliminary results with the Beckman Counter indicate a statistically observable tritium increase in the post-cavitation deuterated acetone samples, suggesting the possibility of D-D fusion taking place, other results show the increase to be within one standard deviation of zero. (There is new counting in progress with the Beckman Counter - at abstract submission - to improve statistics.) The Packard and Beckman measurements of samples of normal acetone and deuterated acetone not subjected to cavitation do not show statistically observable changes in tritium. (authors)