THE PHOTODISINTEGRATION OF OXYGEN NUCLEI INTO FOUR ALPHA-PARTICLES

Abstract

A total of 323 four-prong stars found in photographic plates exposed to bremsstrahlung of maximum energy 70 Mev. have been identified as due to the disintegration of O 16 nuclei into four alpha-particles. The excitation function of the reaction exhibits pronounced peaks at 22.5 Mev. and 32.5 Mev. as well as maxima at intermediate energies, and the integrated cross sections for various energy ranges have been estimated. The mechanism of the process has been investigated and most of the disintegrations proceed via known excited levels in C 12 and various states of Be 8 .