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One curiosity is why alpha particles, helium nuclei, should be preferentially emitted as opposed to other particles like a single proton or neutron or other atomic nuclei. [note 1] Part of the reason is the high binding energy of the alpha particle, which means that its mass is less than the sum of the masses of two free protons and two free ...
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.
The decaying nucleus is called the parent radionuclide (or parent radioisotope), and the process produces at least one daughter nuclide. Except for gamma decay or internal conversion from a nuclear excited state, the decay is a nuclear transmutation resulting in a daughter containing a different number of protons or neutrons (or both).
A very small minority of neutron decays (about four per million) are so-called "two-body (neutron) decays", in which a proton, electron and antineutrino are produced as usual, but the electron fails to gain the 13.6 eV necessary energy to escape the proton (the ionization energy of hydrogen), and therefore simply remains bound to it, as a ...
Following electron capture, the atomic number is reduced by one, the neutron number is increased by one, and there is no change in mass number. Simple electron capture by itself results in a neutral atom, since the loss of the electron in the electron shell is balanced by a loss of positive nuclear charge. However, a positive atomic ion may ...
For DNA oligonucleotides, i.e. short sequences of DNA, the thermodynamics of hybridization can be accurately described as a two-state process. In this approximation one neglects the possibility of intermediate partial binding states in the formation of a double strand state from two single stranded oligonucleotides.
In molecular biology, [1] [2] [3] DNA replication is the biological process of producing two identical replicas of DNA from one original DNA molecule. [4] DNA replication occurs in all living organisms acting as the most essential part of biological inheritance .
Nuclear transmutation is the conversion of one chemical element or an isotope into another chemical element. [1] Nuclear transmutation occurs in any process where the number of protons or neutrons in the nucleus of an atom is changed.