{"paper":{"title":"Muon-Catalyzed Nuclear Fusion: Physical Mechanism, Bottleneck Breakthroughs, and an Engineering Pathway","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["nucl-ex","nucl-th","physics.acc-ph"],"primary_cat":"hep-ph","authors_text":"Wei Kou, Xiong Yin, Xurong Chen","submitted_at":"2026-05-26T01:37:19Z","abstract_excerpt":"Muon-catalyzed nuclear fusion (\\mucf) replaces atomic electrons with negative muons, compressing atomic orbitals by about two orders of magnitude and enabling deuterium--tritium (D--T) fusion under near-room-temperature conditions. This paper reviews the physical principles of \\mucf{} and formulates its essential dynamics as a four-step cycle: muonic-atom formation, muon transfer, resonant \\dtmu{} molecular formation, and D--T fusion with muon release and recycling. A kinetic model is used to quantify the number of catalysis cycles per muon and the corresponding energy gain. We focus on the ce"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2605.26432","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2605.26432/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}