Radioactive Decay
This material comes from everywhere, but I guess I’ll just say that it
comes from (Lamarsh, et. al. 2001) or (Cember, 2012); both of these are
great introductory texts for Nuclear Engineering.
It seems silly to say, but a lot of graduate nuclear engineers have to
think about what decay means what as far as transmutation goes. And we
all know the problems with people thinking… It’s important to know
the transmutation situations for at least the most common modes of
decay.
Given an atom of isotope \(\mathrm{\sideset{^{A}_{Z}}{_{N}}X}\)
where \(A\) is the atomic number, \(Z\) is the number of
protons, and \(N\) is the number of neutrons, and \(X\) is the
atom’s symbol, we have the neutron atomic mass
\(M\left(Z,A\right)\). We can use the definition
\(1\mathrm{amu} \equiv 931.5\mathrm{MeV}\) to convert this to our
modified \(cgs\) units system.
Positron Decay
A proton in the nucleus turns into a neutron, emitting a positron
(positively charged particle with mass of an electron) and a neutrino.
\[\mathrm{\sideset{^{A}_{Z}}{_{N}}X \rightarrow \sideset{^{A}_{Z-1}}{_{N+1}}Y + \beta^{+} + \nu}\]
Beta Decay
A neutron in the nucleus turns into a proton, emitting a \(\beta\)
(negative charged particle with mass of an electron - basically an
electron) and an anti-neutrino.
\[\mathrm{\sideset{^{A}_{Z}}{_{N}}X \rightarrow \sideset{^{A}_{Z+1}}{_{N-1}}Y + \beta^{-} + \overline{\nu}}\]
Alpha Decay
A helium nucleus within the full nucleus is ejected.
\[\mathrm{\sideset{^{A}_{Z}}{_{N}}X \rightarrow \sideset{^{A-4}_{Z-2}}{_{N-2}}Y + \sideset{^{4}_{2}}{_{2}}\alpha}\]
Bibliography
