Artistic Impression of Nuclear Excitation (IMAGE)
Caption
The cover image is an artistic impression of the process of nuclear excitation by electron capture. A highly stripped ion, illustrated here as an atomic nucleus with a single orbiting electron, captures an incident electron into a vacant orbit. Under the right conditions, this capture transfers a small amount of energy into the nucleus, which subsequently emits a much larger amount of energy in the form of gamma rays.
Credit
Image courtesy of ARL's James J. Carroll, William Parks and Eric Proctor
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License
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