 Nuclear alpha-decay recoil correction

In two-body alpha decay of a parent at rest, momentum conservation makes daughter and alpha momenta equal and opposite. The nonrelativistic kinetic energies therefore satisfy $T_d/T_{\alpha }=m_{\alpha }/M_d$, givingAn excited daughter reduces the available Q value. To leading recoil order, an alpha line separation $\Delta T_{\alpha }$ corresponds to excitation $E_x=(1+m_{\alpha }/M_d)\Delta T_{\alpha }$. Thus ratios of excitation energies inferred from line separations do not need the common recoil factor. These formulas assume kinetic energies small compared with rest masses; an exact relativistic two-body decay calculation can replace them when necessary.