Abstract
SOME years ago I published, in collaboration with Mr. H. Jones1, a paper in the course of which certain experimental observations were recorded on electrons which had passed through hydrogen gas and had suffered therein two inelastic collisions. Certain arguments were based on these observations from which a determination of the probability of effective collision was obtained. In some very recent work in this laboratory, I have been attempting to use the same method in the case of helium, using apparatus of a very much more refined character. Briefly, narrow electron beams are used of velocities between 50 and 400 volts which pass through helium at low pressure making elastic and inelastic collisions on the way. The beam can be oriented at various angles with respect to fine slits through which, at the zero angle, the beam passes. After the beam has passed through the slits, they enter a magnetic field at right angles to their path, are deflected through 180°, and are then recorded photographically on a film. The film on development shows a magnetic spectrum, exhibiting not only the full velocity line (F in Fig. 1) corresponding to those electrons which have proceeded straight through the slits from the gun or have suffered only elastic collisions on the way, but also at lower velocities various narrow lines corresponding to energy losses, the most probable of which I have previously shown to be that corresponding to the transition l1S0 — 2lP1. This loss line (L1) is quite intense and the probability of a collision of the type necessary to produce this loss has been accurately measured in this laboratory at various impact energies.
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Phil. Mag., 1928.
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WHIDDINGTON, R. Electron Polarisation?. Nature 131, 908 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131908a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131908a0
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