In reply to Taylor J. Smith's message of Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:08:30 +0000: Hi, [snip] >The Mossbauer effect, as an example, allows coupling >of recoil energy from gamma decay of a nucleus that is >"locked" into a crystal, to the whole crystal domain, >instead of seeing individual nuclear recoil. > I used to favor this a possibility, until I finally understood what the skeptics were saying, namely that photons have very little "kick". IOW this only works as long as a photon is ejected, and the resultant kick back energy of the emitting nucleus remains in the thermal energy range. That means that it is not likely to be applicable here because no photon is emitted (since no gammas are detected).
In short the kick back force on the nucleus has to be commensurate with the lattice forces holding the nucleus in position. If an alpha were to be ejected, the kick back force would be vastly greater, and the remaining nucleus would be ripped from the lattice. So a Mossbauer effect is probably out of the question. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
