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Topic: Predicting the Mode of Decay for Indium-120  (Read 2286 times)

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Offline caleesirose

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Predicting the Mode of Decay for Indium-120
« on: April 29, 2019, 01:40:35 PM »
Using the valley of stability model, I get an answer of electron capture or positron emission. However, the answer is beta-decay. *delete me*

Offline caleesirose

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Re: Predicting the Mode of Decay for Indium-120
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2019, 01:43:35 PM »
I calculated n/p= 1.4. The number needs to increase to 1.5, therefore I concluded that the number of neutrons need to increase. Based on this, I concluded that the mode of decay was electron capture or positron emission.

Offline Enthalpy

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Re: Predicting the Mode of Decay for Indium-120
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2019, 03:51:25 PM »
Welcome, caleesirose!

Stable isotopes of indium are 115 and 113. n/p=1.5 is clearly wrong. I don't know if you made some mistake or if said valley stability model is off.
https://www.webelements.com/indium/isotopes.html
120In having clearly too many electrons, and being too light for alpha emission, SF and so on, you can suppose that β- is its main decay mode.

Nuclides tables confirm it:
https://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html
click on a nuclide for more information.

By the way, β+ is also a beta decay, and when a nuclide lacks neutrons, electron capture tends to be rarer than positron emission.

And: if the neutron count were close to the optimum, deductions would be difficult. Think of 40K, which decays by β-, β+ and EC.

More generally, models for the stability of nuclides fail. Shell, drop... they all make grossly wrong predictions.

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