Cloud Chamber Photographs of the Cosmic Radiation (eBook)

Front Cover 1
Cloud Chamber Photographs of the Cosmic Radiation 4
Copyright Page 5
Table of Contents 6
Acknowledgments 7
Foreword 8
Authors' Preface 9
Section I: Technical Features of Operation 10
Diffused cloud-chamber tracks 12
Preferential sign condensation 13
Ionization in hydrogen 14
Relationship in time and space of counter-controlled tracks 15
Technical features of track formation near metal plates 17
Distortion at edge of piston 18
Turbulent distortion 18
Chamber contamination by liquid spray 18
Techniques of internal control of the cloud-chamber 19
Examples of photographs in a long rectangular cloud chamber 23
Section II: Electrons and Cascade showers 24
The first recognizable cosmic ray particles in cloud chamber photographs 25
The positive electron 26
Early photographs of cascade showers 27
Cascade processes with artificially produced electrons and photons 29
Cascade development of small showers 33
Transition effects of showers in metal plates 37
A localized cascade 41
Extensive showers 42
Nuclear interaction associated with an extensive shower 48
Large shower of penetrating and cascade particles 49
High energy cascade with which is associated an evaporation star in the gas of the chamber 51
Elastic collisions by fast particles (formation of "knock-on" electrons) 53
Section III: Slow µ-mesons and their decay 56
Early photographs of mesons 57
Examples of µ-meson decay 61
Loss of momentum by a slow meson traversing a metal plate 65
The determination of the mass of a meson by elastic collision with an electron 66
Determination of the masses of cosmic-ray particles from momentum and range 67
Energy measurements on decay electrons 71
Section IV: Nuclear disintegrations and interaction of secondary particles 76
Early examples of nuclear disintegrations caused by cosmic ray particlcs 77
Nuclear disintegration in a multiplate chamber 79
Nuclear interactions in carbon and lead 81
Nuclear disintegrations in a thick lead plate 83
Examples of the interaction of penetrating shower particles 86
Nuclear disintegrations with electronic elements 91
Penetrating shower in a high pressure cloud chamber 103
Capture of a meson in argon 104
Stars in the gas of the cloud chamber, associated with nucleonic particles 105
Products of an energetic star in the gas of the cloud chamber 106
Disintegrations produced by artificially-accelerated nucleons 109
Section V: V-particIes 110
The first photographs of V-particle decay 111
Fast neutral V-particles 113
Slow neutral V-particles 115
Neutral V-decays in which one secondary can be identified 117
The origin of neutral V-particles 125
Fast charged V-particle 129
Slow charged V-particle 130
Nuclear encounters in which particles are identified which appear to have masses of the order of 1000 m. 131
Section VI 133
A heavy cosmic ray primary at 95,000 altitude 133