fission product

fission product, in physics, any of the lighter atomic nuclei formed by splitting heavier nuclei (nuclear fission), including both the primary nuclei directly produced (fission fragments) and the nuclei subsequently generated by their radioactive decay. The fission fragments are highly unstable because of their abnormally large number of neutrons compared with protons; consequently they undergo successive radioactive decays by emitting neutrons, by converting neutrons into protons, antineutrinos, and ejected electrons (beta decay), and by radiating energy (gamma decay).

One of the many known fission reactions of uranium-235 induced by absorbing a neutron results, for example, in two extremely unstable fission fragments, a barium and a krypton nucleus. These fragments almost instantaneously release three neutrons between themselves, becoming barium-144 and krypton-89. By repeated beta decay, the barium-144 in turn is converted step by step to other fission products, lanthanum-144, cerium-144, praseodymium-144, and eventually relatively stable neodymium-144; and krypton-89 is similarly transformed to stable yttrium-89 by way of rubidium-89 and strontium-89. Fission products are identified by their chemical properties and by their radioactive properties, such as their half-lives and the kinds of particles they emit.