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The decay scheme of a radioactive substance is a graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay, and of their relationships. Examples are shown below. It is useful to think of the decay scheme as placed in a coordinate system, where the vertical axis is energy, increasing from bottom to top, and the horizontal axis is the proton number, increasing from left to right.
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
This diagram illustrates the four decay chains discussed in the text: thorium (4n, in blue), neptunium (4n+1, in pink), radium (4n+2, in red) and actinium (4n+3, in green). The four most common modes of radioactive decay are: alpha decay, beta decay, inverse beta decay (considered as both positron emission and electron capture), and isomeric ...
Beta decay specifically involves the emission of a W − boson from one of the down quarks hidden within the neutron, thereby converting the down quark into an up quark and consequently the neutron into a proton. The following diagram gives a summary sketch of the beta decay process according to the present level of understanding.
The two types of beta decay are known as beta minus and beta plus.In beta minus (β −) decay, a neutron is converted to a proton, and the process creates an electron and an electron antineutrino; while in beta plus (β +) decay, a proton is converted to a neutron and the process creates a positron and an electron neutrino. β + decay is also known as positron emission.
English: A diagram illustrating the radioactive decay chains of the non-synthetic elements. The four decay chains shown are thorium (in blue); radium (in red); actinium (in green); and; neptunium (in purple).
Feynman diagram of the dominant leptonic pion decay. Kaon decay in a nuclear emulsion. The positively-charged kaon enters at the top of the image and decays into a π − meson (a) and two π + mesons (b and c). The π − meson interacts with a nucleus in the emulsion at B. The π ± mesons have a mass of 139.6 MeV/c 2 and a mean lifetime of 2 ...
Internal conversion is an atomic decay process where an excited nucleus interacts electromagnetically with one of the orbital electrons of an atom. This causes the electron to be emitted (ejected) from the atom.