On a New Device for the Study of the Compton Effect

Abstract

ACCORDING to a recent tentative suggestion of W. R. Smythe, a study of the intensities of the Compton modified scattered X-ray spectrum lines might serve to prove whether the electrons effective in the scattering which produces the modified radiation are completely “free” or whether they are “bound” to atoms of the scattering substance. If “modified” scattering is produced by free electrons only, then the intensity of the modified line should be jointly proportional to the intensity of the incident radiation (number density of radiant corpuscles) and to the number of free electrons present. But this latter is itself at least roughly proportional to the intensity of the incident radiation, since it is safe to assume that most of these free electrons are rendered so by the photoelectric action of the incident X-radiation. Hence the intensity of the modified scattered line should vary roughly as the square of the incident intensity, or at least as some greater power than unity of the incident intensity.