Is there a way to extend or reduce the half-life of a radioactive object? Perhaps by subjecting it to more radiation or some other method.
Radioactivity – Understanding How Half-Life of Radioactive Substances Changes
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The half-life $t_{1/2}$ is defined so that the amount of stuff you have $N(t)$ at some time $t$ is $$ N(t) = N_0 \cdot 2^{-t/t_{1/2}} $$ where $N_0$ is how much stuff you start with and you're familiar with the constant $2$.
This definition has several advantages. First, it's easy to explain, since scientists of all ages are familiar with the constant $2$. Second, it's unambiguous. If you asked about a "quarter-life," do you mean when a quarter of your original material remains $t_{1/4}$, which is after two half-lives, or when a quarter of your original material has decayed? The second option is not $\frac12 t_{1/2}$, because the decay is exponential and not linear; it's $t_{3/4} = t_{1/2}\log_2\frac43$, ugh.
"Full life" is not an option because the number of remaining decay-ers approaches zero only asymptotically.
When you start to do calculus, the same sort $\log_2$ ugliness comes up again. Another, probably nicer, way to write the decay equation is $$ N(t) = N_0 e^{-t/\tau} $$ where $e = \frac1{0!} + \frac1{1!} + \frac1{2!} + \cdots \approx 2.7183$ is the base of the natural logarithms. The constant $\tau$ is referred to by several names, depending on your mood and the experience level of the person you're communicating with: sometimes $\lambda \equiv 1/\tau$ is called the "decay constant," and sometimes $\tau$ itself is referred to as the "$e$-folding time" or simply "the lifetime."
A nice feature of the exponential form is that, if you assume that every decay is detectable (or that a known fraction of the decays are detectable) then you can find the measured activity of your source: $$ A(t) = -\frac{dN}{dt} = \frac{N_0}{\tau}e^{-t/\tau} $$ This means that if you can measure what your source's activity is, and measure long enough to watch it change, you have effectively weighed the radioactive part of the source by fixing $N_0$, even if $N_0$ may be only a few millions of atoms.
The half life is not a guarantee of faster rate of energy release: just faster rate of disintegration. You need to multiply that by the energy released per disintegration to get the energy release per second.
All other things being equal (same atomic mass, same energy released), you need to bring less material (mass) along if you try to generate a certain amount of energy, if that material has a shorter half life.
The simple way to see that: if the total energy needed is released by 3000 atoms disintegrating, and the journey takes one half life, then I need to bring 6000 atoms along (half disintegrate). But if the half life is twice as short, I only need to bring 4000 atoms: after half the flight 2000 disintegrated, and another 1000 in the second half of the flight.
That demonstrates another problem: if you need constant power from your source, you need a longer half life...
In other words - it depends.
Best Answer
Do rates of nuclear decay depend on environmental factors?
There are two known environmental effects that can matter:
(1) The first one has been scientifically well established for a long time. In the process of electron capture, a proton in the nucleus combines with an inner-shell electron to produce a neutron and a neutrino. This effect does depend on the electronic environment, and in particular, the process cannot happen if the atom is completely ionized.
(2) In some exceptional examples, such as 187Re, there are beta decays with extremely low energies (in the keV range, rather than the usual MeV range). In these cases, there are significant effects due to the Pauli exclusion principle and the surrounding electron cloud. See Ionizing a beta decay nucleus causes faster decay?
Other claims of environmental effects on decay rates are crank science, often quoted by creationists in their attempts to discredit evolutionary and geological time scales.
He et al. (He 2007) claim to have detected a change in rates of beta decay of as much as 11% when samples are rotated in a centrifuge, and say that the effect varies asymmetrically with clockwise and counterclockwise rotation. He believes that there is a mysterious energy field that has both biological and nuclear effects, and that it relates to circadian rhythms. The nuclear effects were not observed when the experimental conditions were reproduced by Ding et al. [Ding 2009]
Jenkins and Fischbach (2008) claim to have observed effects on alpha decay rates at the 10^-3 level, correlated with an influence from the sun. They proposed that their results could be tested more dramatically by looking for changes in the rate of alpha decay in radioisotope thermoelectric generators aboard space probes. Such an effect turned out not to exist (Cooper 2009). Undeterred by their theory's failure to pass their own proposed test, they have gone on to publish even kookier ideas, such as a neutrino-mediated effect from solar flares, even though solar flares are a surface phenomenon, whereas neutrinos come from the sun's core. An independent study found no such link between flares and decay rates (Parkhomov 2010a). Laboratory experiments[Lindstrom 2010] have also placed limits on the sensitivity of radioactive decay to neutrino flux that rule out a neutrino-mediated effect at a level orders of magnitude less than what would be required in order to explain the variations claimed in [Jenkins 2008]. Despite this, Jenkins and Fischbach continue to speculate about a neutrino effect in [Sturrock 2012]; refusal to deal with contrary evidence is a hallmark of kook science. They admit that variations shown in their 2012 work "may be due in part to environmental influences," but don't seem to want to acknowledge that if the strength of these influences in unknown, they may explain the entire claimed effect, not just part of it.
Jenkins and Fischbach made further claims in 2010 based on experiments done decades ago by other people, so that Jenkins and Fischbach have no first-hand way of investigating possible sources of systematic error. Other attempts to reproduce the result are also plagued by systematic errors of the same size as the claimed effect. For example, an experiment by Parkhomov (2010b) shows a Fourier power spectrum in which a dozen other peaks are nearly as prominent as the claimed yearly variation.
Cardone et al. claim to have observed variations in the rate of alpha decay of thorium induced by 20 kHz ultrasound, and claim that this alpha decay occurs without the emission of gamma rays. Ericsson et al. have pointed out multiple severe problems with Cardone's experiments.
In agreement with theory, high-precision experimental tests show no detectable temperature-dependence in the rates of electron capture[Goodwin 2009] and alpha decay.[Gurevich 2008] Goodwin's results debunk a series of results from a group led by Rolfs, e.g., [Limata 2006], which used an inferior technique.
He YuJian et al., Science China 50 (2007) 170.
YouQian Ding et al., Science China 52 (2009) 690.
Jenkins and Fischbach (2008), https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283v1, Astropart.Phys.32:42-46,2009
Jenkins and Fischbach (2009), https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3156, Astropart.Phys.31:407-411,2009
Jenkins and Fischbach (2010), https://arxiv.org/abs/1007.3318
Parkhomov 2010a, https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.2295
Parkhomov 2010b, https://arxiv.org/abs/1012.4174
Cooper (2009), https://arxiv.org/abs/0809.4248, Astropart.Phys.31:267-269,2009
Lindstrom et al. (2010), http://arxiv.org/abs/1006.5071 , Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 622 (2010) 93-96
Sturrock 2012, https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0205
F. Cardone, R. Mignani, A. Petrucci, Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956
Ericsson et al., Comment on "Piezonuclear decay of thorium," Phys. Lett. A 373 (2009) 1956, https://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0623
Ericsson et al., https://arxiv.org/abs/0909.2141
Goodwin, Golovko, Iacob and Hardy, "Half-life of the electron-capture decay of 97Ru: Precision measurement shows no temperature dependence" in Physical Review C (2009), 80, 045501, https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.4338
Gurevich et al., "The effect of metallic environment and low temperature on the 253Es α decay rate," Bull. Russ. Acad. Sci. 72 (2008) 315.
Limata et al., "First hints on a change of the 22Na βdecay half-life in the metal Pd," European Physical Journal A - Hadrons and Nuclei May 2006, Volume 28, Issue 2, pp 251, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epja/i2006-10057-1