CHAPTER THREE

• 3. RADIOACTIVE DECAY PROCESSES /9hrs/

3.1. Instability of Nuclei
3.2. Alpha Decay
3.3. Spontaneous Fission,
3.4. Beta Decay
3.5. Parity violation in beta decay
3.6. Gamma Transitions
3.7. Exponential Decay
3.8. Growth of Radioactive Products,

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 3. RADIOACTIVE DECAY PROCESSES
Radio decay process : This is the process by which unstable
isotopes emit particles of ionizing radiation . They loss energy by
emitting particles or EM
 3.1. Instability of Nuclei : The stability of nuclei is of great interest
because unstable nuclei undergo transitions that result in the
emission of particles and/or electromagnetic radiation (gammas).
If the transition is spontaneous, it is called a radioactive decay.
If the transition is induced by the bombardment of particles or
 radiation, then it is called a nuclear reaction.
The mass of a nucleus is the decisive factor governing its stability.
Element having charge number grater than 82 ,are not stable
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 Nuclei are held together by the strong nuclear force, however protons
 experience a force of repulsion due to the electromagnetic force and so
 if the forces are out of balance, the nuclei will become unstable and will
 experience radioactive decay. There are 4 reasons why a nucleus might
 become unstable, and depending on why a nucleus is unstable it will
 decay in a different way:
 i) It has too many neutrons - Decays through beta-minus emission (or
 neutron emission in some circumstances), one of the neutrons in the
 nucleus changes into a proton and a beta-minus particle and
 antineutrino is released. The nucleon number is constant, while the proton number
increases by1.

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2)It has too many protons - Decays through beta-plus emission or
electron capture. In beta-plus decay a proton changes into a neutron
and a beta-plus particle and neutrino is released. In electron capture,
an orbiting electron is taken in by the nucleus and combined with a
proton causing the formation of a neutron and neutrino. In both types
of decay the nucleon number stays constant, while the proton number
decreases by 1.
3) It has too many nucleons - Decays through alpha emission, the
nucleon number decreases by 4 and proton number decreases by 2.
4) It has too much energy - Decays through gamma emission, this
usually occurs after a different type of decay, such as alpha or beta
decay because the nucleus becomes excited and has excess energy.
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Nuclei may decay through several types of emission before finally
becoming stable.

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 As you can see from the graph of number of neutrons against the
 number of protons, the number of neutrons and protons in a stable
 nucleus does not increase uniformly beyond around 20 of each
 neutrons and protons. This is because beyond this amount the
 electromagnetic force of repulsion becomes larger than the strong
 nuclear force keeping the nucleus together, and so more neutrons are
 needed to increase the distance between protons in order to
 decrease the magnitude of the electromagnetic force to keep the
 nucleus stable. An atom is stable if the forces among the particles
 that make up the nucleus are balanced . An atom is unstable or
 radioactive if these forces are
 un balanced instability of an atoms nucleus may result from an excess of either neutrons or
protons .

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 Some of the factor that affect nuclear stability are :nuclear forces
 ,mass defect ,binding energy , neutron proton ratio(N/P).
 If N/P=1 it is stable for light nuclei ,and if N/P>1 it is unstable for heavy nuclides
 for Law atomic number 1:1 and high atomic number 1.5:1
 The actual number of protons and neutrons affect the stability the
 Nucleus ,nuclei with even number of protons and neutrons are more
 likely stable than those with odd number of protons /and or neutrons
 Elements which higher atomic numbers are more stable .if they have slightly excess of
neutrons ,these neutrons increases the attractive force and also reduce the repulsive force b/n the
protons
 Smaller nuclei ( z
 Nuclei with z

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 magic number : the number of protons and neutrons that are particularly stable . Magic
number N or Z .2,8,20 ,28 ,50 ,82 or N=126
One of the nuclides in the ff pair is stable and other radio active ?
 , ,
The greater the BE/nucleon, the more stable the nucleus.
Nuclear Decay Whenever a nucleus can attain a more stable (i.e., more
tightly bound) configuration by emitting radiation, a spontaneous
disintegration process known as radioactive decay or nuclear decay may occur.
 In practice, this "radiation" may be electromagnetic radiation, particles, or
both. Detailed studies of radioactive decay and nuclear reaction processes have led
to the formulation of useful conservation principles.
Conservation of electric charge implies that charges are neither created nor destroyed. Single
positive and negative charges may, however, neutralize each other.
It is also possible for a neutral particle to produce one charge of each sign.
Conservation of mass number does not allow a net change in the number of
nucleons. However, the conversion of a proton to a neutron and vice versa is allowed.

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Conservation of mass and energy implies that the total of the kinetic
energy and the energy equivalent of the mass in a system must be
conserved in all decays and reactions. Mass can be converted to
energy and energy can be converted to mass, but the sum of mass
and energy must be constant.
 Conservation of momentum is responsible for the distribution of the
available kinetic energy among product nuclei, particles, and/or
radiation. The total amount is the same before and after the reaction
even though it may be distributed differently among entirely different
 nuclides and/or particles.

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Alpha decay is the emission of alpha particles (helium nuclei) which
may be represented as either or . When an unstable nucleus
 ejects an alpha particle, the atomic number is reduced by 2 and the
mass number decreased by 4. An example is uranium-234 which
decays by the ejection of an alpha particle accompanied by the
emission of a 0.068 MeV gamma.

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 Where A is the parent isotope (the atom being broken apart)
 B is the daughter isotope or the isotope formed.
 Beta decay
 is the emission of electrons of nuclear rather than orbital origin.
 These particles are electrons that have been expelled by excited nuclei
 and may have a charge of either sign. If both energy and momentum are
 to be conserved, a third type of particle, the neutrino, ʋ, must be
 involved. The neutrino is associated with positive electron emission, and
 its antiparticle, the antineutrino, , is emitted with a negative electron.
 These uncharged particles have only the weakest interaction with matter, no
 mass, and travel at the speed of light. For all practical purposes, they pass through all
 materials with so few interactions that the energy they possess cannot be recovered.
 The neutrinos and antineutrinos are included here only because they carry a portion of
 the kinetic energy that would otherwise belong to the beta particle, and therefore,
 must be considered for energy and momentum to be conserved. They are normally
 ignored since they are not significant in the context of nuclear reactor applications.
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Negative electron emission, represented as or simply as or ,
effectively converts a neutron to a proton, thus increasing the atomic
number by one and leaving the mass number unchanged. This is a
common mode of decay for nuclei with an excess of neutrons, such as
fission fragments below and to the right of the neutron to proton
stability curve . An example of a typical beta minus-decay reaction is
shown below.

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Positively charged electrons (beta-plus) are known as positrons.
Except for sign, they are nearly identical to their negatively charged
cousins. When a positron, represented as , or simply as
e + or ẞ + , is ejected from the nucleus, the atomic number is
decreased by one and the mass number remains unchanged. A
proton has been converted to a neutron. An example of a typical
positron (beta-plus) decay is shown .

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Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits
into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces
gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by
 the energetic standards of radioactive decay.

Fission vs Fusion
Nuclear fusion and nuclear fission are two different types of energy-releasing reactions in which
energy is released from high-powered atomic bonds between the particles within the nucleus.
The main difference between these two processes is that fission is the splitting of an atom into
two or more smaller ones while fusion is the fusing of two or more smaller atoms into a larger
one

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 Nuclear Fission

 Fission reaction does not normally occur in nature

 Fission produces many highly radioactive particles
 The energy released by fission is a million times greater than that released in chemical
reactions; but lower than the energy released by nuclear fusion
 One class of nuclear weapon is a fission bomb, also known as an atomic bomb or atom
bomb
 Fission is the splitting of a large atom into two or more smaller ones
 Critical mass of the substance and high-speed neutrons are required
 Takes little energy to split two atoms in a fission reaction
 Nuclear fission is the splitting of a massive nucleus into photons in the form of gamma
rays, free neutrons, and other subatomic particles. In a typical nuclear reaction involving
235U and a neutron:

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 + n = followed by + + 3n + 177 MeV

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 spontaneous fission, type of radioactive decay in which certain
 unstable nuclei of heavier elements split into two nearly equal
 fragments (nuclei of lighter elements) and liberate a large amount
 of energy. Spontaneous fission (SF) is a form of radioactive decay
 that is found only in very heavy chemical elements. Fission is a form
 of nuclear transmutation because the resulting fragments (or daughter
 atoms) are not the same element as the original parent atom. The two (or
 more) nuclei produced are most often of comparable but slightly different
 sizes, typically with a mass ratio of products of about 3 to 2, for common
 fissile isotopes.Most fissions are binary fissions (producing two
 charged fragments), but occasionally (2 to 4 times per 1000 events), three
 positively charged fragments are produced, in a ternary fission. The
 smallest of these fragments in ternary processes ranges in size from a proton to an argon nucleus.
 Spontaneous fission generally occurs in atoms with atomic numbers above 90. Spontaneous
 fission is a relatively slow process except for the heaviest isotopes
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 In gamma decay a radioactive nucleus first decays by the emission of
 an alpha or beta particle. The daughter nucleus that results is usually
 left in an excited state and it can decay to a lower energy state by
• emitting a gamma ray photon.
• Waves are emitted from the nucleus
 atomic number and mass number no change
• Characteristics of γ-decay
• 1 They are electromagnetic radiations
• (photons) like X-rays having very short wavelength, in the range of 10−10 m
• to 10−13 m.
• 2 They affect photographic plate.
• 3 They are unaffected by .electric and magnetic fields.(No charge no Lorentz force)
• 4 Their ionizing power is low, and is about one hundredth of β- particles.(No charge no ionization)
• 5 Their velocity is same as that of light.
• 6 Their penetrating power is very high, about 100 times more than that of β - particles.(since they
• do not interact they keep on moving .
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 2.6 Gamma Transitions
 just like electrons of atoms ,the nuclei of atoms can also transition
b/n energy states .when a nucleus of an atom moves from an excited
state to the ground state ,it can release electro magnetic radiation of
very high frequency even higher than x –ray such radiation is known
as gamma radiation or gamma rays (s-1)
 the general formula of gamma decay is given by :
 + is gamma decay .or N(A,Z)* N(A,Z)+
Explain how do nuclei of atoms get the excited state in 1st place ?

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• Write the characteristics of electron capture ?

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