Disintegration of a neutral $V$-particle into a proton and negative meson strongly suggests that the $V$-particle is an excited state of the neutron. In order to account for the very long lifetime of this state, it is suggested that the nucleon has a very complex structure involving many mesons in virtual states. The excitation is then distributed over many degrees of freedom, so the probability for formation of that state which leads directly to disintegration may be very small. If $n_0$ is the average number of pions of each charge in the nucleon and $f$ is the number of states available to a single pion, the lifetime for pion emission is estimated to be $t=fn_0^{}{}_{}{}^{2f}\times {10}^{-23\mathrm{}}$ sec. For the reasonable choice $f=10\mathrm{}$ and $n_0=4\mathrm{}$ this agrees with the observed lifetime of the neutral $V$-particle.

• Received 2 July 1951

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.84.305