Some experiments upon artificial transmutation using the cloud-track method

Abstract

The investigation of the disintegration particles which are emitted during the bombardment of the light elements by beams of artificially accelerated protons or diplons has been carried out at the Cavendish Laboratory by two main methods involving the use either of electrical counting devices or of an expansion chamber. While the counting methods are best suited for a rapid investigation of the types and ranges of the particles emitted from any particular element the cloud-track method, once the correct set of experimental conditions has been realized, gives direct evidence of the ranges and relative directions of emission of the particles resulting from a single nuclear process. The choice of this set of experimental conditions is greatly facilitated by a knowledge of the results of the "counting: experiments and therefore the expansion chamber method has been mainly used in these researches to provide a stringent test of the modes of transmutation suggested by the counting method. An account is here presented of the investigation of ( a ) the transmutation effects produced by the bombardment of heavy hydrogen with diplons, and ( b ) the short range products which are emitted during the bombardment of lithium with protons. Summaries of the results of these experiments have already appeared: they are here described in greater detail.