In reply to Eric Walker's message of Wed, 9 Dec 2015 20:49:09 -0600: Hi, [snip] >Understood. I only wanted to get agreement on what Krane's understanding >is. I think Krane's understanding is the mainstream position. This is not >necessarily the correct one, but it's good to know what it is if one is >going to take a position against it. > >Given the extreme subtleties of the experimental data in this particular >field and the success of practitioners in untangling a number of details, >I'm personally inclined to go with Krane's understanding as a first pass, >but this doesn't mean everyone should. > >Eric
I just thought of something else, which might better align with Krane's explanation. The nuclear force is very short range. In an elongated nucleus the curvature of the surface at the poles is greater than the curvature at the equator. That means that particles at the poles have on average fewer neighbors than those at the equator, so the nuclear binding force they feel is also weaker. This combined with the increased Coulomb repulsion makes the barrier thinner (actually, it makes it lower, but the effect is the same). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
