Inner-shell ionization during nuclear #betta# decay

A theory is developed of the ionization of inner-shell electrons during #betta# decay. For allowed transitions it is shown that in the lowest order of the coupling constants the transition amplitude for the process is a sum of two terms, one of which attributes the ionization process to the sudden change in nuclear charge, and the other to a virtual scattering of an inner-shell electron by the emerging #betta# particle. For the K-shell-specific calculations are carried out using nonrelativistic hydrogenic wave functions and a Coulomb Green's function due to Glauber and Martin. Results whose relative accuracy is of order Zα are obtained for energy spectra, angular correlation functions, and the total internal ionization probability; numerical results are presented for the nuclides 63Ni, 107Pd, and 151Sm. The role of the virtual-scattering mechanism is assessed and a comparison with other recent theoretical work is made