4th Week: Decays, Tunneling and Cross Sections

Nuclear Radiation

Figure 1. A table of known stable and radioactive nuclides

When looking at the table of nuclides it is obvious that the valley of stability is only a small percentage of all known nuclei. So most nuclei are considered unstable. To become stable these nuclides emit ionizing particles and radiation, resulting in a loss of energy from the original nuclei. This Process is called radioactive decay.

Gamma Decay

$E_{\alpha }=E_{centerofmass}{\frac {M_{product}+M_{reaction}}{M_{reaction}}},\;\;\;\;E_{centerofmass}=E_{\alpha }{\frac {M_{reaction}}{M_{reaction}+M_{product}}}$