Indroduction

Abstract

When an atom has undergone nuclear transformation (nuclear reaction or radioactive decay), it often acquires high kinetic energy, or high electric charge. The atom formed with an energy well in excess of the ambient thermal energy (not necessarily via a nuclear event), or highly charged is called a hot atom. Such atoms then dissipate most of their kinetic energy in the medium producing radiolytic changes in the surrounding system (those changes will be studied in radiation chemistry) and eventually become stabilized through chemical reactions. If the hot atom is radioactive, we can follow its fate until it becomes chemically combined. Thus hot-atom chemistry is a field of studies regarding the fate of the highly excited atoms and molecules mainly resulting from nuclear transformations.