text: Except for some refinements, little has changed since Jacksons 1957 assessment of the feasibility of muon-catalyzed fusion other than Vesmans 1967 prediction of the hyperfine resonant formation of the muonic (d–μ–t) molecular ion which was subsequently experimentally observed.  This helped spark renewed interest in the whole field of muon-catalyzed fusion, which remains an active area of research worldwide. However, as Jackson observed in his paper, muon-catalyzed fusion  is "unlikely" to provide "useful power production ... unless an energetically cheaper way of producing μ-mesons can be found."
  One practical problem with the muon-catalyzed fusion process is that muons are unstable, decaying in  (in their rest frame). Hence, there needs to be some cheap means of producing muons, and the muons must be arranged to catalyze as many nuclear fusion reactions as possible before decaying.
  Another, and in many ways more serious, problem is the "alpha-sticking" problem, which was recognized by Jackson in his 1957 paper. The α-sticking problem is the approximately 1% probability of the muon "sticking" to the alpha particle that results from deuteron-triton nuclear fusion, thereby effectively removing the muon from the muon-catalysis process altogether. Even if muons were absolutely stable, each muon could catalyze, on average, only about 100 d-t fusions before sticking to an alpha particle, which is only about one-fifth the number of muon catalyzed d–t fusions needed for break-even, where as much thermal energy is generated as electrical energy is consumed to produce the muons in the first place, according to Jackson's rough estimate.
  More recent measurements seem to point to more encouraging values for the α-sticking probability, finding the α-sticking probability to be around 0.3% to 0.5%, which could mean as many as about 200 (even up to 350) muon-catalyzed d–t fusions per muon.  Indeed, the team led by Steven E. Jones achieved 150 d–t fusions per muon (average) at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.  The results were promising and almost enough to reach theoretical break-even. Unfortunately, these measurements for the number of muon-catalyzed d–t fusions per muon are still not enough to reach industrial break-even. Even with break-even, the conversion efficiency from thermal energy to electrical energy is only about 40% or so, further limiting viability. The best recent estimates of the electrical "energy cost" per muon is about  with accelerators that are (coincidentally) about 40% efficient at transforming electrical energy from the power grid into acceleration of the deuterons.
  As of 2012, no practical method of producing energy through this means has been published, although some discoveries using the Hall effect show promise.