The Production of Fast Deuterons in High Energy Nuclear Reactions

Abstract

It is proposed that the fast deuterons observed among the products of high energy nuclear reactions are to be understood in terms of a "pick-up" or sudden rearrangement process. A theoretical treatment of such a process is given which suffices to interpret presently existing data. Further experiments are proposed to test the hypothesis critically, and a possible application of this type of experiment to the determination of nuclear wave functions is pointed out.