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PONTECORVO 1947

Pontecorvo, B.;
Nuclear Capture of Mesons and the Meson Decay
Phys. Rev. 72 (1947) 246;

Reprinted in
Bruno Pontecorvo, Izbrannye trudy, ed. S. M. Bilenkii, Moskva, <> (1997) t.I, s.37.

Motivation
The experiment of Conversi, Panchini, and Piccioni indicates that the probability of capture of a meson by nuclei is much smaller than would be expected on the basis of Yukawa theory. Gamow has suggested that the nuclear forces are due exclusively to the exchange of neutral mesons, the processes involving charged mesons and the β-processes having probabilities which are smaller by a factor of about 10¹².
We notice that the probability (~ 10⁶) of capture of a bound negative meson is of the order of the probability of ordinary K-capture processes, when allowance is made for the difference in the disintegration energy and the difference in the volumes of the K-shell and of meson orbit. We assume that this is significant and wish to discuss the possibility of a fundamental analogy between β-processes and processes of emission or absorption of charged mesons. (Extracted from the introductory part of the paper.).

Related references
See also
J. A. Wheeler, Phys. Rev. 71 (1947) 320;
T. Sigurgeirson and A. Yamakawa, Phys. Rev. 71 (1947) 319;
E. Fermi, E. Teller, and V. Weisskopf, Phys. Rev. 71 (1947) 314;
R. E. Marshak, Phys. Rev. 57 (1940) 1101;
G. Gamow and E. Teller, Phys. Rev. 51 (1937) 289;
W. Nordheim, Phys. Rev. 59 (1941) 544;
G. Cocconi, A. Loveredo, and V. Tongiorgi, Phys. Rev. 70 (1946) 852;
Analyse data from
M. Conversi, E. Pancini, and O. Piccioni, Phys. Rev. 71 (1947) 209;