alpha decay

Noun

Meaning

radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus that is accompanied by the emission of an alpha particle

Synonyms

Hypernyms

Examples

All of these decay only through alpha decay, although some unknown bohrium isotopes are predicted to undergo spontaneous fission. Source: Internet

All of these decay only through alpha decay and spontaneous fission, with the single exception of seaborgium-261 that can also undergo electron capture to dubnium-261. Source: Internet

By 1928, George Gamow had solved the theory of alpha decay via tunneling. Source: Internet

Despite having a similar half-life to the previous isotope (8.1 hours for astatine-210 and 7.2 hours for astatine-211), the alpha decay probability is much higher for the latter: 41.81% against only 0.18%. Source: Internet

For example, at over 1.9 × 10 19 years, over a billion times longer than the current estimated age of the universe, bismuth-209 has the longest known alpha decay half-life of any naturally occurring element. Source: Internet

Francium-221 then decays into astatine-217 by alpha decay (6.457 MeV decay energy). Source: Internet

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