Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi,

I was curious if it's possible to speed up the decays of isotope and, if possible, how can this be accomplished?

The half-life of an isotope is an intrinsic property like its mass and cannot be changed. One can, however, force an isotope to fission by bombarding it with neutrons -- this is how the chain reaction that powers atomic power plants and fission bombs works. Another thing to note is that if a particle is moving very rapidly, relativistic time dilation will cause the half-life we observe to be longer than the intrinsic half-life. For example, it is because of this effect that short-lived mesons produced by cosmic rays striking atoms in the upper atmosphere live long enough to reach the ground. You can learn more about the half-life of isotopes by 'googling' the search field "half-life of isotopes".

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask further questions if it did not.

Hello,

As far as changing the half-life goes, I agree with Mr. Dreher. I would just like to add that decay, which can be thought of as a spontaneous physical process, is not affected by the addition of such things as catalysts, in case you were wondering that when you asked the question. Bombarding an isotope with neutrons, as mentioned above, is done to make conditions more unstable and to help with the decay process. One result of such an action may be a radioactive product (or products) that have half-lives themselves!

kevinhahahaha,

As discussed in the previous replies, it is difficult to change the half-life of an isotope. However, the pressure applied to an isotope can change its half-life by increasing the magnitude of the electron density at the nucleus. See http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFM.V51E0828L. The effect is very small, and it applies only to nuclei that decay by electron capture.

WW

Thanks for the correction WW.