Chronology of Milestone Events in Particle Physics - MURPHY 1934
Chronology of Milestone Events in Particle Physics

MURPHY 1934

Murphy, G.M.; Johnston, H.;
The Nuclear Spin of the Deuterium
Phys. Rev. 45 (1934) 761(A108);

Full Text
The relative intensities of 29 lines have been measured in the -bands of the molecular spectrum of deuterium. The bands lie between 5939 and 6291Å and were photographed in the second order of a 21 foot grating by using a sample of gas containing more than 90 percent deuterium. The latter was kindly furnished by Professor H. C. Urey and the analysis of the bands by Professor G. H. Dieke. A tungsten filament lamp and a set of 8 neutral wire screens were used for putting density marks on each plate. They were put on the same plate with the molecular spectrum using the same exposure time for each. The usual type of photographic density curves were plotted and from them the intensities of the molecular lines determined. The values of gs and ga, the statistical weight due to nuclear spin for the symmetric and antisymmetric levels were obtained for each branch by a least squares solution of the equation, ln I/i = ln Cg - BJ(J+l)/kT where I is the measured intensity of the line, i is the transition probability, g is the statistical weight for the nucleus, C is a constant and the other quantities have their usual significance. The results for Q and R branches of the (0,0), (1,1), (2,2) and (3,3) bands using 2 different plates gave 1.95 ± 0.06 and 2.02 ± 0.04 as the ratio of gs /ga. Since the symmetric levels are more intense, the nucleus obeys Bose-Einstein statistics and the nuclear spin is 1.

Accelerator NONE Detectors PHOTON

Reactions
  deut(atom)* deut(atom) p

Particles studied
  deuteron qn

Record comments
Evidence that the spin of the deuteron is 1.
    
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