How do you write the nuclear equation of the 'annihilation of beta particles to form radiation'?

1 Answer
Truong-Son N.
Jul 22, 2018

Annihilation just means the destruction of particles that have nonrelativistic mass. This occurs when a particle and antiparticle collide. Likely the example you are looking for is the annihilation of an electron (""_(-1)^(0) e) by a positron (""_(+1)^(0) e):

""_(-1)^(0) e + ""_(+1)^(0) e -> 2""_(0)^(0) gamma

This forms 2 gamma ray photons, ""_(0)^(0) gamma. Here we observe

  • conservation of charge
  • conservation of particles

The net charge remains 0, and the net number of particles remains 2. The photons have no nonrelativistic mass.

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