Abstract
A very drastic change in the present conception of the interaction of mesons with atomic nuclei was suggested by Fermi, Teller and Weisskopf1 as a result of the experiments by Conversi, Pancini and Piccioni2, who observed the behaviour of positive and of negative cosmic ray mesons coming to rest in iron or graphite. They find that in iron, disintegration electrons are observed only for positive mesons. According to Tomonaga and Araki3, this is to be expected because negative mesons—in contrast to positive ones—after being slowed down can approach the nucleus and be absorbed by it in view of the strong interaction postulated by Yukawa to explain nuclear forces. In graphite, on the other hand, decay electrons were observed from both positive and negative mesons. Fermi et al. concluded that this was in sharp disagreement with expectation, because according to their estimate it takes only about 10–12 sec. until a negative meson in a solid reaches its lowest orbit, from which it should be captured by the nucleus in less than 10–18 sec. Since the natural decay time is only 10–6 sec., they conclude that from negative mesons no decay electrons should be expected, in contrast to the experimental evidence in graphite.
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References
Fermi, Teller and Weisskopf, Phys. Rev., 71, 314 (1947).
Conversi, Pancini and Piccioni, Phys. Rev., 71, 209 (1947).
Tomonaga and Araki, Phys. Rev., 58, 90 (1940).
Fröhlich and Pelzer, E.R.A. Report, to be published.
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FRÖHLICH, H. Decay of Negative Mesons in Matter. Nature 160, 255 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/160255a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/160255a0
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