- #1
leoneul
- 5
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I’ve had huge difficulty understanding/interpreting the concept of branching fraction. So correct me if I’m wrong please:
Let’s take the decay of Ra-226 with half-life of 1602 years as an example. It decays through alpha 1 chanel to the excited state of Rn-222 with E=0,187 Mev ( branching fraction 5,4%) and through alpha 2 decay chanel to the ground state of Rn-222 ( Branching fraction 94,6%).
Now my understanding/interpretation :
If we have for example 10^6 Ra-226 nuclides at t=0 , then after 1602 years have passed , 0.054 * ( 10^6 / 2 )=27000 of alpha1 particles and (10^6/2)- 27000=527000 alpah 2 particles will have emitted.
Let’s take the decay of Ra-226 with half-life of 1602 years as an example. It decays through alpha 1 chanel to the excited state of Rn-222 with E=0,187 Mev ( branching fraction 5,4%) and through alpha 2 decay chanel to the ground state of Rn-222 ( Branching fraction 94,6%).
Now my understanding/interpretation :
If we have for example 10^6 Ra-226 nuclides at t=0 , then after 1602 years have passed , 0.054 * ( 10^6 / 2 )=27000 of alpha1 particles and (10^6/2)- 27000=527000 alpah 2 particles will have emitted.