What particles come out of radioactive decay?

Answer 1

The primary particles emitted from radioactive decay are alpha particles and beta particles.

Alpha particles are helium nuclei, two protons and two neutrons.

Beta particles comes in two flavors. In Beta- decay a neutron is converted into a proton, resulting in a W- boson, which then nearly immediately decays into an electron and an electron antineutrino. In Beta+ decay, a proton is converted into a neutron, with the emission of a positron, and an electron neutrino.

Sometimes, more than just alpha particles are emitted, in a process called cluster decay, of which alpha decay is simply a subset. You can have multiple alpha particle emission, or you can have substantially larger particles emitted, such as the nuclei of Cesium-137, as a result of fission. While fission is normally an induced process, in nuclear reactors and bombs, it can also spontaneously occur, so it can also be called a decay process.

Another particle that can be emitted during fission, spontaneous or induced, is the neutron. Under the right conditions, these neutrons can go on to induce further fission, in a process we call a chain reaction. Controlled, we call that a nuclear power plant; uncontrolled, we call that a bomb.

Last, there is gamma radiation or x-rays. Most decay processes leave the nucleus or electron cloud in an excited state, and it "wants" to lose its excess energy and return to normal state. When this happens, a photon is emitted, resulting in gamma radiation (nucleus) or x-rays (electron cloud) of various energies. Most of the time, this photon emission occurs very quickly, on the order of 1 x 10-12 seconds after excitation, but some nuclei, such as Technetium-99m, have a meta-stable state that allows them to stay excited for a long time, usually minutes or hours.

Answer 2

radioisotopes