Particles, fundamental decay reactions

Even though many of the fundamental particles were discovered only a few years ago, a tremendous amount of information has been gained about their properties and the reactions by which they are produced, changed into other forms of matter, and destroyed. The reactions by which the unstable particles decay are listed in Table 20-4, which also gives the values of the half-life. All of these decay reactions are uni-molecular reactions, the nature of which has been discussed in Chapter 10. 

Nuclear reactor physics covers fundamental concepts associated with nuclear reactors including particles, mass, energy, weight fraction, volume fraction, atom fraction, particle interactions, radioactive decay, nuclear cross sections, neutron moderation, flux, reaction rate, and neutron activation. 

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