Eli5 Radioactive decay versus heat

Question

How radioactive decay of unstable elements is affected by heat?

Does the added energy make the elements more likely to decay ?

Or besides having other neutrons/protons interact with the atom there is no other way to influence it’s decay rate ?

In: 6

Answer 1

Honestly I have no knowledge of that. But you should Google: Radioactivity temperature dependence

I have found a good couple of articles.

Theoretically since radioactive decay puts atoms into lower energy states, so into more stabil states even on 0K radioactive decay happens, it doesn’t require additional energy so increasing thermal energy shouldn’t effect it. The energy required for decay is already there. But I don’t know if there isn’t any temperate dependence. For that you need to look into what experiments suggest.