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Nuclear decay



From the sister/brother list Chemed-l:
Conventional answer is "NO"
Anyone know otherwise?

John N. Cooper, Chemistry
Bucknell University
Lewisburg PA 17837-2005
jcooper@bucknell.edu
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jcooper
VOX 570-577-3673 FAX 570-577-1739

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:59:00 -0700
From: Robert W. Zoellner <rwz7001@humboldt.edu>
To: chemed-l@atlantis.uwf.edu
Subject: Nuclear decay

Greetings All,

A question came up as a follow-up to the recent fire at New Mexico's Los
Alamos National Laboratory that I could not answer. I'm hoping that
someone out there can do so:

Are rates of nuclear decay affected by changes in temperature? That is,
as with other first order reactions, if you raise the temperature, does
the rate increase? My immediate response was that the effect of
temperature would be negligible given the energies involved, but on second
thought decided that the temperature effect would depend upon the
activation energy, and I had no clue as to the magnitude of that barrier.
So ... can you speed up nuclear decay by raising the temperature for
temperatures attainable in a laboratory setting ... or in the sun ...
etc.?

Thanks for the assistance.

Bob Z.

Robert W. Zoellner, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
Humboldt State University
One Harpst Street
Arcata, California 95521-8299

telephone: (707)826-3244
fax: (707)826-3279