Energy nuclei

If light nuclei can be induced to fuse together to produce heavier nuclei, energy will again be... 

Wlieii very heavy nuclei, such as those of uranium and plutonium, are split into lighter nuclei having less total mass than the very heavy nuclei, energy is released. The process is called nuclear fission. In either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, much of the convened rest energy emerges as kinetic energy, heat, and light. 

As a consequence, by breaking up a heavy nucleus (fission) to produce lighter and more stable nuclei, energy is once again released. Detailed examination of the stability curve reveals other important features of nuclear structure which are strongly correlated with observed abundances. 

Fission is the splitting of an unstable nucleus into smaller, usually more stable nuclei. Energy and/or collisions with particles cause fission, which results in the release of more energy and/or particles. 

Nuclear Reactor Runaway or Nuclear Detonations A nuclear detonation occurs when fission or fusion rearranges the stmcture of nuclei. Energy in an air detonation of a nuclear device becomes converted into a blast wave, thermal radiation, and nuclear radiation. For a nuclear reactor mnaway, the rate of decomposition is much less than that of a weapon. The likelihood of a mnaway reactor is very low because control systems included in the reactor design prevent such occurrences. 

F ure 43. Relationship between energy and distance between hydrogen nuclei (energy diagram of Hj). The midd are shown at the most aiergetically favored distance >art, that is, the bond Imgth of the Hj atom. 

Recently, major advances have been obtained in the microscopic description of few nucleon systems. Starting from realistic NN-, as well as NNN -interactions (see O Sects. 2.1.2.1 and O 2.3.1.3), many properties of 3 < A < 8 nuclei (energies of ground and excited states, radii, electromagnetic moments, etc.) have been described in agreement with experimental results. These calculations have three different frameworks ... 

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