Amazing stuff! Nice detective work!
"... Tritium was discovered in 1934 by experimental physicist Ernest Rutherford’s team. ... Starting with 1934, Paris scoured the published physics literature, eventually coming across Ruhlig’s single-author, 1938 letter to the editor published in Physical Review about a gamma-ray experiment. ...
Ruhlig was working with deuterium-on-deuterium interactions: blasting deuterium with a beam of deuterons and studying gamma-ray effects. ... In what is nearly an aside in the final paragraph of the letter, Ruhlig described observing protons with extremely high energies, inferring that they were generated by secondary reactions: tritium-on-deuterium fusion neutrons scattering protons out of a thin cellophane foil placed inside a cloud chamber. He cited a private conversation with Hans Bethe in unpacking what he’d seen. The DT reaction “must be an exceedingly probable one,” he concluded, offering a quantitative estimate of one in 1,000 energetic protons against lower-energy protons. ..."
From the abstract:
"Experiments are described, and results are provided, for the duplication of the first-ever triton-deuterium (colloquially referred to as DT) fusion experiment accidentally performed by A. J. Ruhlig in 1938, but forgotten in the published scientific literature.
We find that Ruhlig overestimated the ratio of the triton-deuterium over deuteron-deuterium neutron yields in his secondary reaction (reaction-in-flight) experiment compared to modern theoretical calculations and our duplication of his experiment using modern neutron detection methods.
Nevertheless, Ruhlig's observation provided the motivation for the application of DT fusion after World War II and its more recent importance in peaceful energy production at DT fusion facilities around the world.
Additionally, the experimental technique used in the present work provides a novel approach for checking on low-energy triton stopping powers in deuterium containing compounds."
Physicists re-create forgotten experiment observing fusion (original news release) "Team sheds light on role of physicist and development of deuterium-tritium fusion"
Search for Gamma-Rays from the Deuteron-Deuteron Reaction (by Arthur Ruhlig 1938, no public access)
Arthur J. Ruhlig circa 1930s. Photograph courtesy Vivian Ruhlig Lamb.
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