Maximum Helium Fraction: Neutron Decay Time & Rest Mass Difference

bolahab
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Suppose the neutron decay time n was 89 sec. AND the difference in
rest mass between neutron to proton, Qn, was 0.129 MeV. What would
the maximum Helium fraction, Yp, be?
 
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bolahab said:
Suppose the neutron decay time n was 89 sec. AND the difference in
rest mass between neutron to proton, Qn, was 0.129 MeV. What would
the maximum Helium fraction, Yp, be?
One needs to provide more information in order to solve this problem. A free neutron decays into a proton, electron and antineutrino, so the product of free neutron decay would be hydrogen. Or is the neutron decaying in a tritium atom, which then is transformed to He-3?

Or does one mean hydrogen rather than He?
 
yes it is transformed into He-3, that was all the info from the question, but the rest info as it says in the book when it is transformed into He-3
 
To solve this, I first used the units to work out that a= m* a/m, i.e. t=z/λ. This would allow you to determine the time duration within an interval section by section and then add this to the previous ones to obtain the age of the respective layer. However, this would require a constant thickness per year for each interval. However, since this is most likely not the case, my next consideration was that the age must be the integral of a 1/λ(z) function, which I cannot model.

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