NucInfo 1.1

Thomas Moore -- September 2007

NucInfo provides a graphical front-end to access a database of measured atomic masses for various nuclei. The program also uses these atomic masses to predict how the nuclei will decay.

Instructions

Type a value for a nucleus' mass number A and atomic number Z and press the Look Up button. NucInfo will then look up the nucleus' atomic mass in the database and display it in atomic mass units, also computing and displaying its binding energy and binding energy per nucleon. The computer then looks up nuclei with atomic numbers Z + 1 and Z – 1, computes the mass difference between the selected nucleus and these possible beta decay products, and on the basis of this mass difference, predicts whether the selected nucleus is stable against beta decay and if not, how it will decay. Finally, the program looks up the atomic mass the nucleus with atomic number Z – 2 and mass number A – 4, computes the mass difference between this possible alpha-decay daughter and your original selected nucleus, and on the basis of this mass difference, predicts whether the nucleus will be stable against alpha decay.

To see how one can determine stability from atomic mass differences, see the discussion in chapter Q13 of Six Ideas That Shaped Physics, Unit Q (McGraw-Hill, 2003).

Reference

The database of atomic masses used by this program is a file downloaded from http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/masses/mass.mas03, which summarizes experimental results given in "The Ame2003 atomic mass evaluation (II)"  by G.Audi, A.H.Wapstra and C.Thibault, Nuclear Physics A729 p. 337-676, December 22, 2003.

Concluding Comments

We have tried to make this program as transparent and as easy-to-use as possible. Please send any bug reports or feature requests to me at tmoore@pomona.edu. This program was written using REALBasic, a superb development environment for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux platforms. For more information, visit www.realbasic.com. This program is freeware, and may be freely distributed, used, and/or modified, subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 or higher (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php).