Light-element disintegrations in photographic plates

Abstract

The aim of the present investigation was to study light-element disintegrations in the photographic emulsion. The mechanism of nuclear processes in light elements is still a subject of considerable uncertainty. The latest results on disintegrations in carbon, nitrogen and oxygen published by HARDING show a fairly good agreement between experimental and theoretical results expected on the basis of the evaporation theory for the energy distribution of ejected alpha particles. Investigations on the angular distribution of the ejected particles show anisotropy, which cannot be explained by the evaporation theory, unless we assume that the process of disintegration is not independent of the mechanism of excitation. The nature of these studies demand large statistical data to be able to conclude any definite results. Owing to the considerable long time necessary to scan a plate, the streneous work of grain-counting and the small percentage of stars with all or most of the prongs ending in the emulsion, the statistical data, which I worked on is only large enough to permit a comparison with results published in the literature.