From: Edmund Storms
Takahashi proposes to form Be8 that fragments after emitting the extra energy as gamma. However, this idea has no experimental support. The other theories do not propose energetic helium is produced. If you want to make a contribution, you need to take these facts into account. For the record Ed, this is NOT what Takahashi says - at least not now. Everyone should be given the same leeway to evolve a theory - and his is looking better and better. Takahashi proposes that the excited Be-8 nucleus has a relatively long lifetime in which it emits lower energy photons in a series of transitions until it reaches a level near the ground state. When the beryllium decays, the two alpha particles have about 90 keV of energy. He specifically says that these photons would NOT be gamma rays. He has some evidence for the 90 keV. There is as much - or maybe more - good evidence for Takahashi's contention - as for any theory which proposes some version of Hagelstein's "magic phonons" as a way around the lack of gammas. Jones
