The disintegration of beryllium by deuterons

[摘要] The present work is confined to the investigation of the neutrons emitted in the reaction (4) and the gamma-rays accompanying the reaction (1) and (4). It was believed that these would give the most interesting and valuable results, and time did not permit detailed study of all the reactions. Using Mattauch;;s (M3) values of the masses, the excitation energy of the compound nucleus B11* is calculated to be 15.62 Mev (excluding the bombarding energy). Such a high excitation should, theoretically, give very broad resonances, perhaps undetectable. In addition to the predicted increase in density of levels (which holds strictly only for the heavier elements), one might expect a decrease in the lifetime of the compound nucleus with increasing excitation energy. Since the half-width Delta;;E of a resonance is determined by the mean life Deltat of the compound nucleus according to the equation DeltaE · Deltat = h, a short lifetime gives resonances which are broad. Sharp resonances then indicate forbidden transitions and provide information about the quantum states of the excited levels. By analogy to deuteron disintegrations of carbon and lithium, it was expected that resonances in the yield curves of beryllium might be found.

[发布机构] Rice University