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"I understand that.? I expected there might be some U x-rays because the early U238 daughter Pa234m beta decays to U234." Correct. That is where the decay U X-Ray would come? from U-234 being created. For every alpha decay of U-238, there will later be a U-234 atom created, and there is a known statistical relationship to an L X-Ray happening or not. This is a sure bet, and the 234 is already back into secular equilibrium with the 238, but nothing below is or will be for a very long time. By the way, old FW natural uranium was chemically separated, leaving it with a full boat of U-234? and 235 in equilibrium already.? NOTE we need to measure the U-238 load by monitoring the? Th and Pa X-Rays or the 1001 keV Gamma Rays. There is a? chance of an alphas particle causing actual XRF of a uranium atom also exists as you say. To test the effect, try to measure your Am internally excited XRF X-Rays vs its Np daughter self XRF X-Rays - this will give a hint as to the efficiency of? internal XRF. Don't forget, during decay the charge or energy must pass through the electron shells of the atom, while once free may not encounter another atom that intimately again. Lots of fun stuff to try still. It's a physical sequence 1=? A particle (Alpha or Beta) leaves parent nucleus -at this point it becomes daughter?nucleus 1.1= nucleus kicks back due to action/reaction in proportion to its mass vs the particle mass and speed. 2= Alpha particle leaves atom, causing XRF sometimes. 3= As the new daughters nucleus sinks to ground state, the excess energy is shed by a photon(s) Yes I know some beta decays are different and the electron does not come out of the nucleus but goes into it instead= EC. Geo ----- Original Message ----- From: Mike L. <loughlin3@...> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 21:20:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [XRF] Trinitite On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 07:25 PM, <GEOelectronics@...> wrote: Uranium decaying does not bring on U X-Rays, only uranium being created by decay does that. U I understand that.? I expected there might be some U x-rays because the early U238 daughter Pa234m beta decays to U234.? I also thought there might be some self florescence of the U (like there is of Pb), because of the high % of U in the glaze.? Is this wrong?? ?I think I see some tiny indications of U x-rays in the FW spectrum, but they are dwarfed by by the Th and Pb peaks. |
