
An electron-positron pair (rest mass of each particle) is produced by a -ray photon of energy . The K.E. imparted to each of the charged particles shall be


Important Questions on Nuclear Physics
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The total rest mass of the products is less than the total rest mass of the reactants by atomic mass unit (amu). By mass-energy conversion formula, approximately. This means that,




Given below are three schematic graphs of potential energy versus distance for three atomic particles electron , proton and neutron in the presence of a nucleus at the origin . The radius of the nucleus is . The scale on the -axis may not be the same for all figures. The correct pairing of each with the corresponding atomic particle is,



A nuclear decay is possible if the mass of the parent nucleus exceeds the total mass of the decay particles. If denotes the mass of a single neutral atom of an element with mass number and atomic number , then the minimal condition that the decay,
will occur is ( denotes the mass of the particle and the neutrino mass can be neglected),
