The low energy β-rays of radium E

Abstract

The object of this work was to obtain information about the shape of the low energy end of the continuous β-ray spectrum of radium E, an element convenient because of its negligible γ-ray emission. The failure of theory to explain the continuous spectrum makes it of interest to obtain all possible experimental information, and although much is now known about the high energy part of the curve, the low energy region has remained obscure owing to certain experimental difficulties. The chief of these has been the contamination of the low energy end of the curve by rays reflected with unknown energy loss from the material on which the radioactive body was deposited. This effect can be eliminated by mounting it on sufficiently thin metal leaf so that no particles can be reflected with appreciable loss of energy. Such a source would be too weak to use in a magnetic spectrograph, and the method therefore adopted in this work was out to mount it in a Wilson expansion chamber and take stereoscopic photographs from which the ranges of any slow tracks formed could be measured, a method already used by the writer for radium D.