Y-Ray emission

AIterna.tives to y-Ray Emission. y-Ray emission results ia the deexcitation of an excited nuclear state to a lower state ia the same nucHde, ie, no change ia Z or. There are two other processes by which this transition can take place without the emission of a y-ray of this energy. These are internal conversion and internal pair formation. The internal-conversion process iavolves the transfer of the energy to an atomic electron. 

In research environments where the configuration and activity level of a sample can be made to conform to the desires of the experimenter, it is now possible to measure the energies of many y-rays to 0.01 keV and their emission rates to an uncertainty of about 0.5%. As the measurement conditions vary from the optimum, the uncertainty of the measured value increases. In most cases where the counting rate is high enough to allow collection of sufficient counts in the spectmm, the y-ray energies can stih be deterrnined to about 0.5 keV. If the configuration of the sample is not one for which the detector efficiency has been direcdy measured, however, the uncertainty in the y-ray emission rate may increase to 5 or 10%. 

The half-hves, y-ray energies, and y-ray emission probabiUties given ia Table 15 are what is needed if the amount of a radioisotope present ia a sample is to be measured. However, there are other uses of radionucHdes where additional data concerning the decay are needed. If a radionucHde is to be iajected or implanted in vivo it is necessary to have data on all of the radiations produced to be able to assess the impact on the ceU stmcture. Table 16 gives samples of the data that can be useful ia this latter case. Such information can be obtained from some of the references above. There are also computer codes that can use the decay data from the ENSDF database to produce this type of information for any radionucHde, eg, RAD LIST (21). 

In NAA the sample is made radioactive by subjecting it to a high dose (days) of thermal neutrons in a reactor. The process is effective for about two-thirds of the elements in the periodic table. The sample is then removed in a lead-shielded container. The radioisotopes formed decay by B emission, y-ray emission, or X-ray emission. The y-ray or X-ray energies are measured by EDS (see Chapter 3) in spe-... 

Rare-earth ions inserted in the tetraborides have the 34- oxidation state, except for CeB4 and YbB4 (see Fig. 2). The abnormal volume contraction for the CeB4 unit cell can be explained by the presence of some Ce ions . Recoilless y-ray emission spectra and magnetic measurements indicate that ytterbium in YbB4 has an intermediate valence state as in YbAl3... 

The rare earths in their dodecaborides have the 3 + oxidation state except for Yb and Tm which have an intermediate valence state. A recoilless y-ray emission spectrum study of TmB,2 shows no magnetic ordering at 1.35 K the spectra of YbB,2 reveal no magnetic structure to 1.35 K. The compounds HoB,2, ErB,2 order antiferromagnetically, and ZrB,2 and LuB,2 become superconducting < 5.8 K and < 0.48 K, respectively. ... 

This technique is invasive however, the particle can be designed to be neutrally buoyant so that it well represents the flow of the phase of interest. An array of detectors is positioned around the reactor vessel. Calibration must be performed by positioning the particle in the vessel at a number of known locations and recording each of the detector counts. During actual measurements, the y-ray emissions from the particle are monitored over many hours as it moves freely in the system maintained at steady state. Least-squares regression methods can be applied to evaluate the temporal position of the particle and thus velocity field [13, 14]. This technique offers modest spatial resolutions of 2-5 mm and sampling frequencies up to 25 Hz. 

Fig. 2.3 Recoil momentum and energy r imparted to a free nucleus upon y-ray emission...

Characterization of the solid phases Si, A1 and Na contents were determined by proton-induced Y-ray emission (PIGE) (11,57) or by high resolution solid state i—NMR spectroscopy (49,50,58)... 

For many of the analytical techniques discussed below, it is necessary to have a source of X-rays. There are three ways in which X-rays can be produced in an X-ray tube, by using a radioactive source, or by the use of synchrotron radiation (see Section 12.6). Radioactive sources consist of a radioactive element or compound which spontaneously produces X-rays of fixed energy, depending on the decay process characteristic of the radioactive material (see Section 10.3). Nuclear processes such as electron capture can result in X-ray (or y ray) emission. Thus many radioactive isotopes produce electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray region of the spectrum, for example 3He, 241Am, and 57Co. These sources tend to produce pure X-ray spectra (without the continuous radiation), but are of low intensity. They can be used as a source in portable X-ray devices, but can be hazardous to handle because they cannot be switched off. In contrast, synchrotron radiation provides an... 

Radioisotopes are unstable and decay by particle emission, electron capture, or y-ray emission. The decay is a random process, i.e., one cannot predict which atom from a group of atoms will decay at a specific time. The decay of radioisotopes, therefore, is described in terms of the average number of radioisotopes disintegrating during a period of time. The disintegration rate (or the number of disintegrations per unit time), -dN/dt, of a radioisotope at any time is proportional to the total number of undecomposed radioisotopes present at that time. This may be expressed as follows ... 

A recent development in physical techniques which may be of aid in evaluating the relative merits of theory is the Mossbauer effect. This effect is based upon recoilless y-ray emission (absorption) resulting from a nuclear transition in a particular atom with the resonance condition of zero-phonon processes. Since such nuclear transitions can be obtained with... 

In many cases in which radiotracers are used, the chemical identity of the tracer is not important. These applications can be referred to as tracing physical processes. For example, consider those experiments that seek to locate an object in some system by labeling it with radioactivity and then measuring the position of the radioactivity in the system. Quite often a tracer that decays by y-ray emission is... 

Note that internal conversion occurs approximately 10 times faster than y-ray emission for this transition in this nucleus. 

Prompt y-ray emission competes with or follows the last stages of prompt neutron emission. These photons are emitted in times from 10 15-10 7s. Typical y-ray multiplicities of 7-10 photons/fission are observed. These photons, as indicated earlier, cany away 7.5 MeV. This y-ray yield is considerably larger than one would predict if y-ray emission followed neutron emission instead of competing with it. Because of the significant angular momentum of the fission fragments ( 7-10 h) even in spontaneous fission, photon emission can compete with neutron emission. The emitted y rays are mostly dipole radiation with some significant admixture of quadrupole radiation, due to stretched El transitions (J/= 7, — 2). 

The probability of y-ray emission or absorption by a nucleus is proportional to the square of the matrix element i/q> between the final, ij/f,... 

Finally, another mode of line broadening is due to the motion of the nucleus, reflecting the mobility (or diffusivity) of the resonant atom. That is, if the nucleus emits or absorbs a y ray while the nucleus is undergoing a movement from site A to site B, then a broadening of the y-ray distribution results if the time scale for this motion is of the order of the nuclear decay time (79). The time scale for the y-ray emission or absorption process is the life time of the excited state, rn ( 10-8 sec) the resolution of the y ray is its wavelength k ( 0.1 nm) thus, effective diffusivities of order k2/r ... 

Pair annihilation of a positron e+ and an electron e by y-ray emission was briefly explained in Section 1.3. There, the hydrogen-like system ePe, or positronium Ps, was described quantum mechanically as a QBS having a finite lifetime r because of an absorption potential —z Vabs- This potential also causes positron flux loss, or positron absorption, in collisions with atoms. 

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