PROTONS AND DEUTERONS EJECTED FROM NUCLEI BY 90-MEV NEUTRONS

The angular and energy distributions of the fast charged particles emerging from nuclei bombarded by 90-Mev neutrons have been investigated. The results indicate that the nature of the collision process is determined predominantly by interactions of the bombarding particle with single nucleons rather than with the struck nucleus as a whole: angular distributions are found to be peaked in the forward direction for all emergent particles, the degree of peaking increasing with energy. Deuterons are found to be more concentrated in the forward direction than are protons. In the case of carbon, particles traveling in the forward direction with energies greater than 20 Mev consist of 60 percent protons, 36 percent deuterons, and about 4 percent tritons.