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Isotopes of barium

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Naturally occurring barium (Ba) is a mix of six stable isotopes and one very long-lived radioactive primordial isotope, barium-130, recently identified as being unstable by geochemical means (from analysis of the presence of its daughter xenon-130 in rocks). This nuclide decays by double-electron capture (absorbing two electrons and emitting two neutrons;) with a half-life of (0.5–2.7)×1021 years (about 1011 times the age of the universe).

There are a total of thirty-three known radioisotopes in addition to 130Ba, but most of these are highly radioactive with half-lives in the several millisecond to several minute range. The only notable exceptions are 133Ba, which has a half-life of 10.51 years, 131Ba (11.5 days), and 137mBa (2.55 minutes), which is the decay product of 137Cs (30.17 years, and a common fission product).

Barium-114 is predicted to undergo cluster decay, emitting a nucleus of stable 12C to produce 102Sn. However this decay is not yet observed; the upper limit on the branching ratio of such decay is 0.0034%.

Relative atomic mass: 137.327(7).

Notes

  • Geologically exceptional samples are known in which the isotopic composition lies outside the reported range. The uncertainty in the atomic mass may exceed the stated value for such specimens.
  • Values marked # are not purely derived from experimental data, but at least partly from systematic trends. Spins with weak assignment arguments are enclosed in parentheses.
  • Uncertainties are given in concise form in parentheses after the corresponding last digits. Uncertainty values denote one standard deviation, except isotopic composition and standard atomic mass from IUPAC, which use expanded uncertainties.
  • References

    Isotopes of barium Wikipedia