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Half-life (symbol t½) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable atoms survive. The term is also used more generally to characterize any type of exponential (or, rarely ...
The half-life, t 1/2, is the time taken for the activity of a given amount of a radioactive substance to decay to half of its initial value. The decay constant , λ " lambda ", the reciprocal of the mean lifetime (in s −1 ), sometimes referred to as simply decay rate .
In nuclear science a decay chain refers to the predictable series of radioactive disintegrations undergone by the nuclei of certain unstable chemical elements. Radioactive isotopes do not usually decay directly to stable isotopes, but rather into another radioisotope. The isotope produced by this radioactive emission then decays into another ...
Specific activity. Specific activity (symbol a) is the activity per unit mass of a radionuclide and is a physical property of that radionuclide. [1][2] It is usually given in units of becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg), but another commonly used unit of specific activity is the curie per gram (Ci/g). In the context of radioactivity, activity or ...
In nuclear physics, the island of stability is a predicted set of isotopes of superheavy elements that may have considerably longer half-lives than known isotopes of these elements. It is predicted to appear as an "island" in the chart of nuclides, separated from known stable and long-lived primordial radionuclides.
The rules of radioactive decay may be used to convert activity to an actual number of atoms. They state that 1 Ci of radioactive atoms would follow the expression N (atoms) × λ (s −1) = 1 Ci = 3.7 × 10 10 Bq, and so N = 3.7 × 10 10 Bq / λ, where λ is the decay constant in s −1. Here are some examples, ordered by half-life:
A nuclear isomer is a metastable state of an atomic nucleus, in which one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) occupy excited state (higher energy) levels. "Metastable" describes nuclei whose excited states have half-lives 100 to 1000 times longer than the half-lives of the excited nuclear states that decay with a "prompt" half life (ordinarily on the order of 10 −12 seconds).
In nuclear physics, the Geiger–Nuttall law or Geiger–Nuttall rule relates the decay constant of a radioactive isotope with the energy of the alpha particles emitted. Roughly speaking, it states that short-lived isotopes emit more energetic alpha particles than long-lived ones. The relationship also shows that half-lives are exponentially ...