A medical tracer is known to decay by positron emission and is found to produce the…
PHYSICS · Multi-part · A Level · Physics · Particles and radiation · Particles and radiation
Problem
A medical tracer is known to decay by positron emission and is found to produce the stable daughter nuclide 1022Ne.
Answer parts (a)–(c).
(a) Determine the mass number and atomic number of the parent nuclide and write the full nuclear equation for the decay, including all emitted particles.
(b) Verify explicitly that your equation conserves nucleon number, electric charge, and lepton number.
(c) Suppose a student claims that an antineutrino, rather than a neutrino, should be emitted in this decay. Evaluate this claim using the conservation laws cited above.