What methods can be used to identify alpha, beta and gamma radiation?

Answer 1

1) The path of a charged particle in a uniform magnetic field is a circle with radius r = m v_ perp /q B
The charge of an electron (beta) is -e and the charge of an alpha is +2e and a mass thousands of times greater than an electron.
The path of an electromagnetic(gamma) wave would be unchanged by a fields and an electron and alpha paths would be very different.

2) The stopping distance of of the radiation in matter would also be very different, because they interact with the bound electrons in a material in very different ways.The alpha and the beta interaction increase with charge and velocity squared or E/m. The gamma radiation interacts only through the photo electric effect which is small at high energies.

OR to put it simply alphas stop is short distances, beta medium, and gamma will penetrate most things.

Answer 2

equipment that measures radiation . alpha,beta and gamma have different energy readings and wavelengths.

Answer 3

ok heres everything i know Alpha decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle and thereby transforms into an atom with a mass number 4 less and atomic number 2 less. For example: → + Because an alpha particle is the same as a helium-4 nucleus, which has mass number 4 and atomic number 2, this can also be written as: → + The alpha particle also has a charge +2, but the charge is usually not written in nuclear equations, which describe nuclear reactions without considering the electrons. This convention is not meant to imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms. Alpha decay is by far the most common form of cluster decay where the parent atom ejects a defined daughter collection of nucleons, leaving another defined product behind . Alpha decay is the most likely cluster decay because of the combined extremely high binding energy and relatively small mass of the helium-4 product nucleus . Alpha decay, like other cluster decays, is fundamentally a quantum tunneling process. Unlike beta decay, alpha decay is governed by the interplay between the nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. Beta particles are high-energy, high-speed electrons or positrons emitted by certain types of radioactive nuclei such as potassium-40. The beta particles emitted are a form of ionizing radiation also known as beta rays. The production of beta particles is termed beta decay. They are designated by the Greek letter beta . There are two forms of beta decay, β− and β+, which respectively give rise to the electron and the positron. β− decay An unstable atomic nucleus with an excess of neutrons may undergo β− decay, where a neutron is converted into a proton, an electron and an electron-type antineutrino : This process is mediated by the weak interaction. The neutron turns into a proton through the emission of a virtual W− boson. At the quark level, W− emission turns a down-type quark into an up-type quark, turning a neutron into a proton . The virtual W− boson then decays into an electron and an antineutrino. Beta decay commonly occurs among the neutron-rich fission byproducts produced in nuclear reactors. Free neutrons also decay via this process. This is the source of the copious amount of electron antineutrinos produced by fission reactors. Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency and therefore high energy. Gamma rays are ionizing radiation and are thus biologically hazardous. They are classically produced by the decay from high energy states of atomic nuclei, but are also created by other processes. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist, discovered gamma radiation in 1900, while studying radiation emitted from radium during its gamma decay. Villard's radiation was named "gamma rays" by Ernest Rutherford in 1903. Natural sources of gamma rays on Earth include gamma decay from naturally occurring radioisotopes, and secondary radiation from atmospheric interactions with cosmic ray particles. Rare terrestrial natural sources produce gamma rays that are not of a nuclear origin, such as lightning strikes and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. Gamma rays are produced by a number of astronomical processes in which very high-energy electrons are produced, that in turn cause secondary gamma rays by the mechanisms of bremsstrahlung, inverse Compton scattering and synchrotron radiation. A large fraction of such astronomical gamma rays are screened by Earth's atmosphere and must be detected by spacecraft. Gamma rays typically have frequencies above 10 exahertz, and therefore have energies above 100 keV and wavelengths less than 10 picometers . However, this is not a hard and fast definition, but rather only a rule-of-thumb description for natural processes. Gamma rays from radioactive decay are defined as gamma rays no matter what their energy, so that there is no lower limit to gamma energy derived from radioactive decay. Gamma decay commonly produces energies of a few hundred keV, and almost always less than 10 MeV. In astronomy, gamma rays are defined by their energy, and no production process need be specified. The energies of gamma rays from astronomical sources range over 10 TeV, at a level far too large to result from radioactive decay. A notable example is extremely powerful bursts of high-energy radiation normally referred to as long duration gamma-ray bursts, which produce gamma rays by a mechanism not compatible with radioactive decay.