Chapter 12 — Further Reading

Textbooks

• Krane, K. S. Introductory Nuclear Physics (Wiley, 1988), Chapter 6. The standard undergraduate treatment of radioactive decay, clearly written with good worked examples. Sections on decay chains and dating methods are particularly strong.

• Lilley, J. S. Nuclear Physics: Principles and Applications (Wiley, 2001), Chapter 1 and Chapter 8. Excellent coverage of decay law fundamentals and applications to nuclear medicine and dating.

• Cottingham, W. N. and Greenwood, D. A. An Introduction to Nuclear Physics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 6. Concise and mathematically rigorous treatment of decay chains and equilibrium conditions.

• Wong, S. S. M. Introductory Nuclear Physics, 2nd ed. (Wiley-VCH, 2004), Chapter 5. Good coverage of decay systematics with connections to the semi-empirical mass formula.

• Loveland, W. D., Morrissey, D. J., and Seaborg, G. T. Modern Nuclear Chemistry, 2nd ed. (Wiley, 2017), Chapters 3 and 6. Bridges nuclear physics and radiochemistry; excellent on specific activity, decay chains, and practical counting methods.

Radiometric Dating

• Faure, G. and Mensing, T. M. Isotopes: Principles and Applications, 3rd ed. (Wiley, 2005). The definitive reference for geochronology and isotope geochemistry. Comprehensive treatment of all major dating methods (K-Ar, Rb-Sr, U-Pb, Sm-Nd, Lu-Hf, Re-Os, $^{14}$C) with geological applications.

• Dickin, A. P. Radiogenic Isotope Geology, 3rd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Another excellent geochronology text, with detailed treatment of concordia diagrams, isochron methods, and Pb-Pb dating.

• Taylor, R. E. and Bar-Yosef, O. Radiocarbon Dating: An Archaeological Perspective, 2nd ed. (Left Coast Press, 2014). Thorough treatment of radiocarbon dating specifically, including calibration, AMS, and archaeological applications.

• Reimer, P. J. et al. "The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0-55 cal kBP)." Radiocarbon 62 (2020): 725-757. The current international radiocarbon calibration curve — essential for any serious radiocarbon work.

Historical and Foundational

• Rutherford, E. and Soddy, F. "The Cause and Nature of Radioactivity." Philosophical Magazine 4 (1902): 370-396, 569-585. The landmark papers establishing the transmutation theory of radioactivity and the exponential decay law.

• Bateman, H. "Solution of a System of Differential Equations Occurring in the Theory of Radio-active Transformations." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 15 (1910): 423-427. The original mathematical paper deriving the general decay chain solutions.

• Libby, W. F. Radiocarbon Dating, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1955). Libby's own account of the development and early applications of the method.

• Curie, M. Radioactive Substances (Doctoral thesis, 1903; reprinted by Dover, 1961). Marie Curie's Nobel Prize-winning dissertation, describing the isolation and characterization of radium and polonium.

Nuclear Data Resources

• National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC), Brookhaven National Laboratory. NuDat 3.0, online at https://www.nndc.bnl.gov/nudat3/. The authoritative source for nuclear structure and decay data. Interactive chart of nuclides with half-lives, decay modes, energies, and branching ratios.

• IAEA Nuclear Data Services. Live Chart of Nuclides, online at https://nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html. Another excellent interactive resource for nuclear data.

• Firestone, R. B. Table of Isotopes, 8th ed. (Wiley, 1996; online update at http://ie.lbl.gov/toi/). Comprehensive tabulation of nuclear data for all known isotopes.

Applications and Special Topics

• Cherry, S. R., Sorenson, J. A., and Phelps, M. E. Physics in Nuclear Medicine, 4th ed. (Saunders, 2012), Chapter 4. Excellent treatment of decay, equilibrium, and generators ($^{99}$Mo/$^{99\text{m}}$Tc) in the context of nuclear medicine.

• L'Annunziata, M. F. Radioactivity: Introduction and History, From the Quantum to Quarks, 2nd ed. (Elsevier, 2016). A comprehensive and engaging history of radioactivity with good coverage of the discovery and characterization of the natural series.

• de Marcillac, P. et al. "Experimental Detection of $\alpha$-Particles from the Radioactive Decay of Natural Bismuth." Nature 422 (2003): 876-878. The measurement showing that $^{209}$Bi is radioactive with $t_{1/2} \approx 1.9 \times 10^{19}$ yr.

• Renne, P. R. et al. "Time Scales of Critical Events Around the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary." Science 339 (2013): 684-687. Precision $^{40}$Ar/$^{39}$Ar dating of the Chicxulub impact, demonstrating the power of modern geochronological methods.

Computational

• SciPy documentation: scipy.integrate.odeint. Official documentation for the ODE solver used in the progressive project. Available at https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.integrate.odeint.html.

• Virtanen, P. et al. "SciPy 1.0: Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python." Nature Methods 17 (2020): 261-272. The reference for the SciPy library.