Alpha decay

The nucleus can modeled as a water drop with surface tension, but unlike real water droplets, a stable particle (helium nucleus) may tunnel through the surface barrier, and appear on the outside. The Coulomb repulsion then drives the alpha particle away at speed. If the heavy daughter nucleus is embedded in a crystal structure virtually all of the energy is acquired by the alpha particle. Alpha particles from the same nucleus have the same energy.

Typical alpha decay

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