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Half-life (symbol t½) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable atoms survive. The term is also used more generally to characterize any type of exponential (or, rarely ...
Particle decay. In particle physics, particle decay is the spontaneous process of one unstable subatomic particle transforming into multiple other particles. The particles created in this process (the final state) must each be less massive than the original, although the total mass of the system must be conserved.
Radioactive decay (also known as nuclear decay, radioactivity, radioactive disintegration, or nuclear disintegration) is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. A material containing unstable nuclei is considered radioactive. Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. [2] : 1.1 It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science . Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that ...
The development of the Standard Model was driven by theoretical and experimental particle physicists alike. The Standard Model is a paradigm of a quantum field theory for theorists, exhibiting a wide range of phenomena, including spontaneous symmetry breaking, anomalies, and non-perturbative behavior.
Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics) In quantum mechanics, perturbation theory is a set of approximation schemes directly related to mathematical perturbation for describing a complicated quantum system in terms of a simpler one. The idea is to start with a simple system for which a mathematical solution is known, and add an additional ...
Nuclear physics. Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle ( helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or "decays" into a different atomic nucleus, with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atomic number that is reduced by two. An alpha particle is identical to the nucleus of ...
Exponential decay is a scalar multiple of the exponential distribution (i.e. the individual lifetime of each object is exponentially distributed), which has a well-known expected value. We can compute it here using integration by parts .