Atomic excitation caused by α decay of the nucleus: model study

When the nucleus of an atom decays by emitting an α particle, the surrounding electrons are disturbed and the atom may be ionized. Practically all calculations so far done for this ionization process are based on Migdal’s method in which the α particle is treated as a classical point charge that is emitted by the nucleus at a certain time. Migdal’s method yields the ionization probability that is in reasonable agreement with experiment. On the …