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Measuring and Detecting Radioactivity

Question

What happens to the mass number and atomic in neutron emission?

3 years ago

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Alice Shanahan


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Mass number down one (if one neutron is emitted) and the atomic number stays same-

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Sara Ahmed

When neutron emission occurs during radioactive decay this is a result of Beta decay. Beta decay causes a neutron to decay into a proton by emitting an electron. Therefore neutron emission causes the mass number to decrease by one, whilst the atomic number is unaffected.

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