The Equations of Radioactive Transformation in a Neutron Flux

Open Access

1 June 1949

journal article
Published by AIP Publishing in The Journal of Chemical Physics

Vol. 17 (6) , 542-547
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1747317

Abstract

The standard equations of radioactive transformation are generalized to include the case where radioactive nuclei are subject to transformation by neutron absorption in addition to spontaneous decay. Opportunity is taken to derive the equations by a simple method which avoids recourse to the formal methods of solving differential equations. A method is pointed out whereby one may write simply by inspection the equation for the activity of a species which is descended from an ancestral species through a chain of any combination of decays and neutron absorptions. Some problems are solved as illustration.

Keywords

This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:

New Barium and Cesium Isotopes: 12.0d ${Ba}^{131}$ , 10.2d ${Cs}^{131}$ , and Long-Lived ${Ba}^{133}$
Physical Review B, 1947