Nuclear Reactions

Binding energy

The binding energy of a nuclide may be accessed either as an attribute of a Particle object, or by using the nuclear_binding_energy() function.

>>> from plasmapy.particles import Particle, nuclear_binding_energy
>>> D = Particle('deuterium')
>>> D.binding_energy
<Quantity 3.56414847e-13 J>
>>> nuclear_binding_energy('D').to('GeV')
<Quantity 0.00222457 GeV>

Nuclear reaction energy

The energy released from a nuclear reaction may be found using the nuclear_reaction_energy() function. The input may be a str representing the reaction.

>>> from plasmapy.particles import nuclear_reaction_energy
>>> nuclear_reaction_energy('Be-8 + alpha --> carbon-12')
<Quantity 1.18025735e-12 J>

The reaction may also be inputted using the reactants and products keywords.

>>> nuclear_reaction_energy(reactants=['D', 'T'], products=['alpha', 'n'])
<Quantity 2.81812097e-12 J>