History of statistical models of nuclear decay processes

In this and the following chapter we present elements of the history of statistical models of nuclear decay processes. We mainly concentrate on those subjects which are ‘statistical’ in the restricted sense that the theoretical treatment involves estimation of microstate densities. Thus some topics will be left aside. Studies pertaining to low excitation energies such as neutron resonances, and fluctuation cross-sections will not be discussed. The interested reader is referred to the works of Vogt [1] and Von Witsch et al [2], which provide rather detailed examples of these areas of research.