The Alpha-Particle Model of the Nucleus

Abstract

This paper reviews the theory of nuclei composed of alpha-particles alone, and extends it to cases where in addition to the alpha-particles, a single neutron or proton is present, and also to those light nuclei in which a single neutron or proton is missing from the complete alphaparticle structure. In the latter cases the missing particle is considered as a neutron or proton "hole." In the first section of the paper, the configuration of the alphaparticles is considered together with the motion of the neutron, proton, neutron hole, or proton hole, in the field of the fixed alpha-particles for nuclei lighter than fluorine. Rough values for the binding energies are obtained and compared with the results of the Hartree model. In the second section of the paper, rotations of the same nuclei are discussed, and the symmetry properties of the fundamental states, as well as the symmetry properties and the approximate spacing of some of the excited states are obtained. The symmetry properties of the fundamental states are in agreement with those obtained from the independent-particle model. Furthermore the excited states as obtained from the two models show a marked parallelism, although a greater number of levels is predicted by the alpha-particle model than by the independent-particle model.