Theory of disintegration of nuclei by neutrons. Offprint from: Physical Review, Vol. 47, May 15, 1935

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First edition, very rare offprint. "The origins of the important idea of the compound nucleus, and the subsequent work of Niels Bohr and Fritz Kalckar on it, may be traced back to the response to a previous publication of Hans Bethe, who in turn was one of the first theoreticians to react publicly to the experimental findings of the Rome group [Fermi et al.] on the disintegration of nuclei by slow neutrons . . . As he noted [in the present paper]: 'We want to show in this paper that a straightforward application of wave mechanics leads to cross sections [interaction probabilities] of just the right magnitude,' and he stressed at the same time that 'long distance forces between neutrons and nucleus are not required, it being assumed that the interaction is appreciable only when the neutron is inside the nucleus' (p. 748). In particular, Bethe found: 'The large disintegration cross sections are due to two factors. The first is elementary: the cross section is inversely proportional to the neutron velocity, because a slow neutron stays longer in the nucleus. The second factor is 1/sin^2 x, where x is the phase of the neutron wave function at the nuclear boundary. This resonance factor explains the large differences between the cross sections of different elements. x cannot be predicted theoretically, but reasonable assumptions lead to agreement with experiment.' He concluded: 'The explanation of the large neutron cross sections on the basis of ordinary wave mechanics makes one confident in the applicability of orthodox quantum theory in nuclear phenomena.'" (Mehra & Rechenberg, The Conceptual Completion and Extensions of Quantum Mechanics 1932-1941 (2001), p. 981). Large 8vo, pp. 747-759. Self-wrappers (a bit creased). N° de ref. del artículo ABE-1677943147130

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