Nuclear decay general

This application shows how a cellular automaton can model a phenomenon in which the agents, or ingredients, change their states. This could refer to a chemical reaction, a nuclear decay, or, more generally, any process in which an item converts to another form. 

Many important natural processes ranging from nuclear decay to uni-molecular chemical reactions are first order, or can be approximated as first order, which means that these processes depend only on the concentration to the first power of the transforming species itself. A cellular automaton model for such a system takes on an especially simple form, since rules for the movements of the ingredients are unnecessary and only transition rules for the interconverting species need to be specified. We have recently described such a general cellular automaton model for first-order kinetics and tested its ability to simulate a number of classic first-order phenomena.70... 

The half-life (fi/z) is the time required for one-half of a given quantity of a substance to undergo change. Not all radioactive isotopes decay at the same rate. The rate of nuclear decay is generally represented in terms of the half-life of the isotope. Each isotope has its own characteristic half-life that may be as short as a few millionths of a second or as long as a billion years. Half-lives of some naturally occurring and s)mthetic isotopes are given in Table 10.2. 

Radioanalytical measurements can have many causes of uncertainty. One of the best known is the inherent randomness of nuclear decay, radiation emission, and radiation detection, which is often referred to as counting statistics. Radiation laboratories generally recognize the existence of counting statistics and account for it when they report the uncertainty of a measurement. The component of the total uncertainty due to counting statistics is the counting uncertainty, which has traditionally been called the counting error. ... 

Nuclear transformations generally possess very high activation barriers and are usually very slow, but even so, spontaneous changes of many heavy nuclides (e.g. and 9oTh) have been known since the nineteenth century. For the decay of a radioactive nuclide, Rutherford initially recognized three types of emission ... 

Radiocarbon dating (43) has probably gained the widest general recognition (see Radioisotopes). Developed in the late 1940s, it depends on the formation of the radioactive isotope and its decay, with a half-life of 5730 yr. After forms in the upper stratosphere through nuclear reactions of... 

The outstanding characteristic of the actinide elements is that their nuclei decay at a measurable rate into simpler fragments. Let us examine the general problem of nuclear stability. In Chapter 6 we mentioned that nuclei are made up of protons and neutrons, and that each type of nucleus can be described by two numbers its atomic number (the number of protons), and its mass number (the sum of the number of neutrons and protons). A certain type of nucleus is represented by the chemical symbol of the element, with the atomic number written at its lower left and the mass number written at its upper left. Thus the symbol... 

A general conclusion from the review of the distribution of plutonium between different compartments of the ecosystem was that the enrichment of plutonium from water to food was fairly well compensated for by man s metabolic discrimination against plutonium. Therefore, under the conditions described above, it may be concluded that plutonium from a nuclear waste repository in deep granite bedrock is not likely to reach man in concentrations exceeding permissible levels. However, considering the uncertainties in the input equilibrium constants, the site-specific Kd-values and the very approximate transport equation, the effects of the decay products, etc. — as well as the crude assumptions in the above example — extensive research efforts are needed before the safety of a nuclear waste repository can be scientifically proven. 

The pattern of nuclear stability can be used to predict the likely mode of radioactive decay neutron-rich nuclei tend to reduce their neutron count proton-rich nuclei tend to reduce their proton count. In general, only heavy nuclides emit a particles. 

The process of j3-decay in some respects offers simpler radiochemical consequences than do neutron capture and other reactions, because (a) the nuclear recoil energy is very low and (b) the decay schemes, and thus the probability of Auger cascades, are generally well known. Despite this, no clear mechanisms have been worked out. 

There are at present 116 known chemical elements. However, there are well over 2000 known nuclear species as a result of several isotopes being known for each element. About three-fourths of the nuclear species are unstable and undergo radioactive decay. Protons and neutrons are the particles which are found in the nucleus. For many purposes, it is desirable to describe the total number of nuclear particles without regard to whether they are protons or neutrons. The term nucleon is used to denote both of these types of nuclear particles. In general, the radii of nuclides increase as the mass number increases with the usual relationship being expressed as... 

Electron capture accomplishes the same end result as positron emission, but because the nuclear charge is low, positron emission is the expected decay mode in this case. Generally, electron capture is not a competing process unless Z 30 or so. 

The plutonium concentration in marine samples is principally due to environmental pollution caused by fallout from nuclear explosions and is generally at very low levels [75]. Environmental samples also contain microtraces of natural a emitters (uranium, thorium, and their decay products) which complicate the plutonium determinations [76]. Methods for the determination of plutonium in marine samples must therefore be very sensitive and selective. The methods reported for the chemical separation of plutonium are based on ion exchange resins [76-80] or liquid-liquid extraction with tertiary amines [81], organophosphorus compounds [82,83], and ketones [84,85]. 

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