Report on Theoretical Considerations on the Radioactive beta-decay
193512 pages
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The fact that the B-particles emitted by radioactive bodies are not homogeneous,
but give a continuous spectrum, cannot be reconciled with what is known from
oc-disintegration and other sources as regards the quantized states of nuclei, unless the
assumption is made that a second particle, other than the observed electron, is emitted in
such processes.
The hypothesis which has been proposed by Pauli is that this particle is a neutrino
. . . I h , an unobserved particle With small mass, no charge, and spin 5 2—) . Whatever the particle, 77' such a hypothesis accounts for the fact that the ,B-ray energy spectrum has a finite upper
limit, which will be reached on those occasions when the second particle has very little or
no energy.
An alternative hypothesis developed in this paper is that the second particle is a positive
or negative electron, which is subsequently captured by the nucleus, following laws not
yet known.
With the most primitive form of these hypotheses, the angular momentum would be
distributed in a statistical manner, like the energy, and it is shown that this leads to the
prediction that negative electrons of small energy would be freely emitted; to avoid this,
it is necessary to introduce a special selection rule. Some justification for this is found in
the assignment to groups of free nuclear charges of a quantum number j, which must not
however be held to have the same definite mechanical interpretation inside the nucleus as
it has outside. . The theory fits in well with a number of observed facts, such as the Sargent curves,
and the order of magnitude of the decay constants.References(21)
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