How will the Arc Reactor work?

Is the core of Iron Man's arc reactor the same as the Tesseract?

• In Iron Man 2, Tony Stark is forced to find an alternate core for his arc reactor. Nick Fury gives him a box of his father's things, within which he finds the model for a new element, which he synchronizes himself. My question is is that element basically the same thing as the material of the Tesseract, found in the Thor, Captain America, and Avengers movies? The triangle core glows like the Tesseract and is a self-sustaining, safe energy source for the Iron Man suit just like the Tesseract is portrayed as for mankind.

• Answer:

  It is hypothesized that Iron Man's arc reactor is based off energy from the Tesseract (Cosmic Cube). It is slightly shown when Tony's Dad tries to mess with in Captain America and is bewildered by it's power. Then he eventually recovers the cube.