First timer, just to get that out there.. I've been contemplating the mysterious mechanism that triggers a nucleus to decay. Now I have no evidence as this is just an idea to be expanded upon, but the thought is that inside the nucleus of a radioactive atom there exists an as of yet undiscovered partical that carries strong and/or weak nuclear forces. As the unsuspecting atom travels through space/time flowing through the dark matter that has amassed around galixies throughout the cosmos, the as-of-yet-named partical crashes into a partical of dark matter annihilating both particals and releasing dark energy along with alphas betas and gamma radiation. Radioactive decay thus remains constant(here, engulfed in dark matter) yet still precisely unpredictable for dark matter is still absolutely unmeasurable by us.. An experiment proving the correlation between dark matter and radioactive decay could be performed if we ever make it to intergalactic space. Once there, one could observe the rate of decay. Since there wouldn't be much of anything in that region of space, the decay should slow down dramatically as there would be no collisions between dark matter and mystery partical.. I could be dead wrong and proven so within the first comment but until then ponder away! I really hope this thread doesn't get deleted..

First question that comes to my mind is whether you expect energy and momentum to be conserved. Currently, that is in our description of radioactive decay we have today, this is the case. If there were unknown particles involved, you would expect energy and momentum not to be conserved for the known particles, since the unknown particle may have a different energy or momentum before and after collision (hence causing the knowns to have different energy/momentum before and after the process, if total energy and momentum are conserved).

 

As far as I know, conservation of energy and momentum holds for all known particle processes. In fact, particle physicists are pretty deperately looking for processes where conservation of energy or momentum of the known particles does not hold. They are hoping to label the missing energy/momentum as a sign of dark matter. To no avail so far, despite huge effort such as the LHC experiment, which particle physicists proudly call the biggest scientific experiment in the history of mankind.

Edited August 3, 201510 yr by timo

First timer, just to get that out there.. I've been contemplating the mysterious mechanism that triggers a nucleus to decay. Now I have no evidence as this is just an idea to be expanded upon, but the thought is that inside the nucleus of a radioactive atom there exists an as of yet undiscovered partical that carries strong and/or weak nuclear forces. As the unsuspecting atom travels through space/time flowing through the dark matter that has amassed around galixies throughout the cosmos, the as-of-yet-named partical crashes into a partical of dark matter annihilating both particals and releasing dark energy along with alphas betas and gamma radiation. Radioactive decay thus remains constant(here, engulfed in dark matter) yet still precisely unpredictable for dark matter is still absolutely unmeasurable by us..

First you should start from learning how to calculate energy released during decay of unstable isotopes:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83451-radioactive-decay-and-information-split-from-what-is-real-in-physics/?p=808149

 

An experiment proving the correlation between dark matter and radioactive decay could be performed if we ever make it to intergalactic space. Once there, one could observe the rate of decay. Since there wouldn't be much of anything in that region of space, the decay should slow down dramatically as there would be no collisions between dark matter and mystery partical.. I could be dead wrong and proven so within the first comment but until then ponder away! I really hope this thread doesn't get deleted..

Satellites, especially the one which are traveling to outer regions of Solar System, where Sun light is very weak, are routinely powered by decays of untable isotope of Plutonium generators for years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

Edited August 3, 201510 yr by Sensei

The edge of our solar system is still a busy place compared to the overpowering depths of interGALACTIC space.. The voyager probes are on an extended journey but interstellar space is still not as empty as intuition would lead one to believe.. But as you all may have guessed, I'm way out of my league in this discussion which, sadly, I started.. I most certainly don't want to sound argumentative so I will say that whatever is triggering the decay, it too is as of yet unmeasurable.. Entropy will solve all our problems in the end.