This excited state is unfavourable and the compound nucleus will almost instantaneously de-excite ( transmutate ) into a more stable configuration through the emission of a prompt particle and one or more characteristic prompt gamma photons.
12.
In 2008, the team at GANIL, France, described the results from a new technique which attempts to measure the fission half-life of a compound nucleus at high excitation energy, since the yields are significantly higher than from neutron evaporation channels.
13.
It is estimated that it requires around 10 " 14 s for the nucleons to arrange themselves into nuclear shells, at which point the compound nucleus becomes a nuclide, and this number is used by IUPAC as the minimum half-life a claimed isotope must have to potentially be recognised as being discovered.
