Photodisintegration of the Deuteron from 500 to 900 Mev

The reaction $\gamma +d\to p+n$ has been studied for photon energies between 500 and 900 Mev. Bremsstrahlung from the California Institute of Technology electron synchrotron was incident on a liquid deuterium target. Measurements of the energy and angle of the protons arising in the interactions were sufficient to establish that photodisintegration without pion emission occurred and also to determine the energy of the photon which gave rise to the detected proton. An excitation curve was obtained at 90° in the laboratory and angular distributions were measured for photon energies of 500 and 700 Mev. The total cross section decreased smoothly from 7 μb at 500 Mev to 1 μb at 900 Mev.