ON THE MECHANISM OF THE GAMMA-O-16-]4-ALPHA REACTION

The distributions over the excitation energies of compound nuclei of B e-8 and C-12 and distributions over the relative energies of alpha-par ticles in various gamma-quanta energy ranges were measured on a bremss trahlung gamma-quanta beam with a maximum energy of 300 MeV using nucl ear photoemulsions. The mechanism of statistical decay of the O-16 nuc leus is shown to play a dominant role for gamma-quanta energies up to 28 MeV. As the gamma-quanta energy increases, the reaction mechanism i nvolving die formation of compound nuclei of Be-8 and C-12 in J(pi) = 2+ states begins to play an important role.