Effective Photon Energies of High Energy Photo-Nuclear Reactions

Abstract

An attempt has been made to use shower theory to evaluate the effective energies of the photo-nuclear reactions measured by Strauch. It seems that these energies can be determined most accurately from the area under the transition curve, the so-called "track length." A theoretical formula for the track length is discussed. The shape of the transition curve at small thicknesses can also be calculated quite accurately and serves as a rough check on the effective energies as derived from the track length. A comparison with experiment of the theoretical shape of the whole transition curve is given; and, as one would expect, the agreement is not very good.