ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the practical application of the Hauser-Feshbach formalism to the problem of single and multistep evaporation. A rather detailed exposure is presented, partly because light particle evaporation is central to the main theme of the book, and partly because the description paves the way towards an understanding of the more complicated investigations which characterize recent research. The topics to be discussed may be thought of, in some ways, as part of the history of statistical decay processes since they are mainly taken from work carried out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this sense, they form an extension of chapter 3. However, the content is largely of a technical nature and can, therefore, also be considered as an introduction to modern simulations. The practical application of the Hauser-Feshbach theory to compound nucleus decay thus provides a bridge between older and more modern ways of comparing theory with experiment. Furthermore, the ‘computational’ approach to the problem contrasts with the essentially analytical approach provided in the previous chapter and hopefully will lead to a more intuitive appreciation of the theory.
