Cold Fusion in a Confining Phase of Quantum Electrodynamics

Both cold fusion and the recently observed tightly correlated electron-positron pairs from heavy-ion collisions point to new physics in the energy range of 1 MeV. The possibility of a confining phase of quantum electrodynamics is considered. We speculate that a small domain of the new phase in a deuterium-rich environment could grow by inducing fusion reactions and absorbing the released energy.