Beta Decay - Beta Emission Spectrum

Beta Emission Spectrum

Beta decay can be considered as a perturbation as described in quantum mechanics, and thus Fermi's Golden Rule can be applied. This leads to an expression for the kinetic energy spectrum N(T) of emitted betas as follows:

N(T) = C_L(T) F(Z,T) p E (Q-T)^2

where T is the kinetic energy, CL(T) is a shape function that depends on the forbiddenness of the decay (it is constant for allowed decays), F(Z,T) is the Fermi Function (see below) with Z the charge of the final-state nucleus, E = T + m c2 is the total energy, p = 1/2 is the momentum, and Q is the Q value of the decay. The kinetic energy of the emitted neutrino is given approximately by Q minus the kinetic energy of the beta.

Read more about this topic:  Beta Decay

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