NNDC Chart of Nuclides

Abstract

The National Nuclear Data Center has recently developed an interactive chart of nuclides, http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/chart/, that provides nuclear structure and decay data. Since its implementation, it has proven to be one of the most popular web products. The information presented is derived from the ENSDF and Nuclear Wallet Card databases. Experimentally known nuclides are represented by a cell in chart with the number of neutrons on the horizontal axis and the number of protons on the vertical axis. The color of the cell is used to indicate the ground state half-life or the ground state predominant decay mode. The Chart of Nuclides is a software product that allows searching and plotting nuclear structure and nuclear decay data interactively. The Chart of Nuclides provides an interface between web users and several databases containing nuclear structure, nuclear decay and some neutron-induced nuclear reaction information. Using the Chart of Nuclides, it is possible to search for nuclear level properties (energy, half-life, spin-parity), gamma-ray information (energy, intensity, multipolarity, coincidences), radiation information following nuclear decay (energy, intensity, dose), and neutron-induced reaction data from the BNL-325 book (thermal cross section and resonance integral). The information provided by the Chart of Nuclides can be seen in tables, level schemes and an interactive chart of nuclides. The sections of the Chart of Nuclides related to levels, gammas and decay are obtained from the Evaluated Nuclear Structure Data File (ENSDF) (1) and the Nuclear Wallet Cards (2). The Chart of Nuclides is periodically updated to reflect changes in ENSDF. The Chart of Nuclides is part of a number of applications developed by the NNDC (3). A brief table showing some of the Chart of Nuclides contents can be found on the table 1: Table 1. Some statistics on the Chart of Nuclides contents.