Experimental investigation of muon catalysis of the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei

The yields and temporal distributions of neutrons from the fusion reaction in the dt..mu.. mesomolecule have been measured in experiments with a gas target filled with purified deuterium and tritium at various pressures in a muon beam from the JINR synchrocyclotron. The experiments were carried out at several tritium concentrations in the temperature range from 93 to 613 K. These data have been used to obtain the lower limit of the production rate of dt..mu.. molecules, lambda/sub d/t..mu..>10/sup 8/ sec/sup -1/, and the rate of muon transfer from deuterium to tritium, lambda/sub d/t = (2.9 +- 0.4) x 10/sup 8/ sec /sup -1/. The value found for the lower limit of the dt..mu..-molecule production rate confirms the existence of the theoretically predicted mechanism, at resonance with the t..mu.. atom energy for the formation of this molecule. The value of the transfer rate lambda/sub d/t is also in good agreement with the theoretical value.