Internal conversion decay, like isomeric transition gamma decay and neutron emission, involves the release of energy by an excited nuclide, without the transmutation of one element into another.
22.
During internal conversion, the atomic number does not change, and thus ( as is the case with gamma decay ) no transmutation of one element to another takes place.
23.
As with gamma decay, each degree of increasing forbiddenness increases the half life of the beta decay process involved by a factor of about 4 to 5 orders of magnitude.
24.
These transitions cannot occur by gamma decay, but must proceed by another route, such as beta decay in some cases, or internal conversion where beta decay is not favored.
25.
After one of these decays the resultant nucleus may be left in an excited state, and in this case it decays to its ground state by emitting high energy photons ( gamma decay ).
26.
Such radiation may be at frequencies that are the same as soft gamma radiation, but it exhibits none of the sharp spectral lines of gamma decay, and thus is not technically gamma radiation.
27.
The excited energy states resulting from these decays which fail to end in a ground energy state, also produce later internal conversion and gamma decay in almost 0.5 % of the time.
28.
The neutrinoless decays would appear as narrow spike in the energy spectrum around the xenon Q-value ( Q ?? = 2457.8 keV ), which is fairly high and above most gamma decays.
29.
An example is internal conversion, which results in an initial electron emission, and then often further characteristic X-rays and Auger electrons emissions, although the internal conversion process involves neither beta nor gamma decay.
30.
The process is the inverse of gamma decay, but the energies involved are typically much larger, and the dipole moments induced are larger than occur in the excited nuclear states that cause the average gamma decay.
