The neutron-proton ratio: | ‘The neutron-proton ratio (N/Z ratio or nuclear ratio) of an atomic nucleus is the ratio of its number of neutrons to its number of protons which is a principal factor for determining whether a nucleus is stable. Elements with (Z< 20} are lighter and these elements’ nuclei and have a ratio of 1:1 and prefer to have the same amount of protons and neutrons amongst stable and naturally occurring nu- clei. But for heavier nuclei this ratio generally increases as the atomic number increases. This is because electrical repulsive forces between protons scale with distance dif- ferently than strong nuclear force attractions. In particu- lar, most pairs of protons in large nuclei are far enough, then the electrical repulsion dominates over the strong nu- clear force, and thus instability increases. This means if the nucleus has to be still holding up then more number of neutrons will be needed just to give more number of attractive forces in the nuclear core as the neutrons are chargeless. Thus N/Z ratio will become more than 1 for heavier nuclei. The graph in the right side is what I am saying * Packing Fraction: Itis defined -usamass defect ‘per unit nucleon: The-value of packing fraction depends upon the manner of packing of the nucleons with in the nucleus. It’s value can be neg- ative, positive or even zero. A positive packing fraction describes a tendency towards instability. A negative pack- ing fraction means isotopic mass is less than actual mass number indicates stability of the nucleus. From the figure it is clear that the packing fraction beyond mass number 200 becomes positive and increases with increase in mass number. In general, lower the packing fraction, greater is the binding energy per nucleon and hence greater is the stability. Mathematically it is defined as py = [s0tepicMass — MassNumber = SttopicMass — MassNumber % ‘MassNumber 4 x 104 e Bindine Beene, Numbegof neutrons 140 120 100 20 40 20 20) eo) 0 Number of protons :