Your description is exactly as I understand it. The random walk is not very long however, since it probably occurs at the first electron it attracts and that is pretty quick after the nucleus gives it up.
Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric Walker To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2014 3:14 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:My current views on the 'Rossi's process' On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 7:12 AM, Teslaalset <[email protected]> wrote: Eric, on the little info I could find in public domain, I understand that ß+ decay happens within the nucleus. Are you saying that there are quite some exceptions? Perhaps Robin or Bob can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the way beta-plus decay works is that the unstable nucleus emits a positron during the transition to the daughter. The positron does something of a random walk around the (extra-nuclear) environment until it encounters an electron, at which point you get the annihilation and resulting 511 keV photon pair (each going off in opposite directions). Eric
