Physicist solves fusion reactor problem shown in ‘The Big Bang Theory’

A team of physicists led by Professor Jure Zupan at the University of Cincinnati, in collaboration with researchers from Fermi National Laboratory, MIT, and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has theoretically solved a fusion reactor problem previously depicted as unsolvable in the TV sitcom "The Big Bang Theory." The problem involved producing hypothetical subatomic particles called axions—candidates for dark matter—in fusion reactors. While the show's characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter attempted and failed to solve this issue in the fifth season, Zupan’s team developed a theoretical framework explaining how axions could be generated in reactors fueled by deuterium and tritium and lined with lithium, such as the ITER reactor under development in France. The researchers found that axions or axion-like particles could be produced through nuclear reactions triggered by neutron flux interacting with the reactor walls, or via bremsstrahlung radiation when neutrons scatter and slow down. This discovery provides a potential method to detect or produce dark matter