Archive of historical materials
Issues Concerning the β Decay
OU1939-A3 (5 pages) Date: None
Yukawa prepared this manuscript for his lecture, “Issues Concerning the β Decay.” In the margin on the first page, Yukawa wrote: (i) Force (energy) distribution of the beta ray, (ii) Capture of K electron, (iii) Selection rule and (iv) Relation to the mesotron theory. However, only (i) and (ii) are discussed in this manuscript. The beta decay is a phenomenon in which a neutron (N) breaks down into a proton (P), electron (e) and neutrino (ν). Yukawa utilized Fermi’s theory and Uhlenbeck’s theory for calculating the distribution of the electron energy resulting from the disintegration, and then compared it with the experimental data obtained by Kikuchi et. al. Furthermore, he described that the capture of K electron, a phenomenon in which the proton absorbs the electron and changes to a neutron and a neutrino, is due to the same interaction.
