I wrote: In my ignorance I am not able to get from p+p or p+D to tritium or > helium-3, a decay product of tritium, without electron capture or something > even more mysterious. >
I should clarify that what I'm hoping to find is an aneutronic reaction to get to tritium or helium-3. If you allow (high energy) daughter neutrons, then it's not difficult to get to helium-3. I think you can get tritium from deuterium via electron capture, but I don't know if that reaction can be influenced; and, anyway, you would not expect to see deuterium above background since it's already being produced by the deuterium. If you allow 6Li or 10B to be present, I think you can get tritium without daughter neutrons. Or perhaps the level of tritium is on the order of that of detected neutrons -- that would be an interesting correlation to look for. EXFOR is telling me that you can get tritium via proton capture with helium-4 and with carbon and other nuclei. So the mystery is perhaps not as mysterious as I was making it out to be. Since helium-3 is a decay product of tritium, Ed Storms has proposed that it is tritium production that precedes helium-3 production, and any explanation would need to address tritium. Eric
