Letter That Cleared Embattled Researcher Surfaces
By Brian Wallheimer
The [Lafayette, Indiana] Journal & Courier

May 19 , 2007

Purdue officials have kept quiet about an inquiry last year into research misconduct allegations against Rusi Taleyarkhan, a Purdue scientist who claimed to have come up with an inexpensive way to produce nuclear energy.

But a Dec. 15, 2006, letter that served as final word on the inquiry from Peter Dunn, Purdue's associate vice president for research, shows why the university didn't pursue further investigation into the misconduct claims.

Dunn's letter, obtained by the Journal & Courier, scolds Taleyarkhan for being too involved in experiments trying to independently confirm his research into what's known as "bubble fusion."

But the letter says Taleyarkhan didn't go far enough to warrant the misconduct allegations leveled against him.

"Dr. Taleyarkhan has displayed what might be characterized most favorably as severe lack of judgment regarding his involvement with the 'independent confirmation' experiment performed, ..." the letter said.

It went on to say, "The (inquiry committee) found no evidence that would contradict Dr. Taleyarkhan's claim that he played absolutely no part in setting up or running experiments, nor obtaining data and conducting analyses thereafter, for experiments. ..."

A shroud of controversy
Taleyarkhan has been surrounded by controversy since claiming to have found bubble fusion, a process that would create massive amounts of energy for little cost and minimal environmental impacts. If true, it would be a revolution in energy production.

But other Purdue scientists argued that Taleyarkhan was too involved in experiments trying to confirm his own results. After Taleyarkhan published his results, Yiban Xu, a Purdue postdoctoral researcher, tried to confirm the work and published papers saying he had.

The letter from Dunn outlines charges of research misconduct by Lefteri Tsoukalas and Martin Lopez de Bertodano, professors in Purdue's Nuclear Engineering Department. They claimed Taleyarkhan participated in writing Xu's papers and called them "nothing but a contrived and hurried attempt to stage the appearance of 'independent confirmation' of sonofusion claims."

Purdue convened an inquiry committee to look into the claims, and the Dec. 15 letter from Dunn cleared Taleyarkhan, saying further investigations were not needed. It even states that Tsoukalas and Lopez de Bertodano provided no documentary evidence to back their claims.

Fanning the flames
Media outlets fanned the fire during the inquiry when Adam Butt, a co−author on one of the papers, claimed he was not involved with the experiments or paper. When reached this week, he declined comment.

Xu reportedly refused to say who had written the paper, but the letter from Dunn reports that Xu did write the initial paper, based on computer records.

A copy of a signed letter from Xu to Dunn, also obtained by the Journal & Courier, says that Taleyarkhan had nothing to do with the experiments or findings.

"... I did all the experiments myself, collected all the data independently and did so without Dr. Taleyarkhan's involvement. I also did the analysis work with no input from him," the letter states.

Taleyarkhan is mentioned in the acknowledgments of Xu's paper. Xu said in the letter to Dunn that Taleyarkhan "marked up" his paper, but that the comments Taleyarkhan made didn't change the data or his analysis.

The letter from Dunn also outlined other concerns about Taleyarkhan's behavior, saying Taleyarkhan's claims that Xu's experiments are independent confirmation would not be accepted in the scientific world because of Taleyarkhan's involvement with the paper.

Abuse of privileges
It also says Taleyarkhan abused his privileges as a senior scientist by placing "junior scientists in precarious positions in order to promote his research program."

The letter points out, however, that the poor judgment of Taleyarkhan would lead only to scientists being skeptical of Xu's papers as confirmation of bubble fusion. It said there wasn't enough evidence to form an investigation committee.

The report was not released by Purdue because of internal rules that require such proceedings be done privately to protect a researcher's reputation.

Joe Bennett, Purdue vice president for university relations, said university officials had no comment. "It's unfortunate that a letter that was confidential and personal was released to the media," Bennett said.

Congressional inquiry
Information from the letter was released in a congressional committee memo. The panel last week chastised Purdue for not doing a thorough enough inquiry and suggested an investigation was warranted. Purdue has opened another inquiry into allegations of misconduct but will not discuss details of the proceedings.

Taleyarkhan said he was bothered the congressional memo didn't mention the reasons he was exonerated.

"Everything that was positive in that report was just glossed over. It wasn't mentioned," Taleyarkhan said.

He believes Tsoukalas especially was involved in character assassination over personal differences the two men have.

"When something like this happens, you know it is not science they are after," Taleyarkhan said.

Tsoukalas and Lopez de Bertodano could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

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