THE HALF-LIFE OF 14C-WHY IS IT SO LONG?

The half-life of radiocarbon (C-14) is 5700 +/- 30 yr, which makes it particularly useful for dating in archaeology. However, only an exceptional hindrance of the beta decay from C-14 to N-14-a so-called Gamow-Teller beta-decay-makes this half-life so long. A normal strength would result in a half-life of only a few days, completely useless for archaeological dating. The unusual hindrance is based on the nuclear structure of the two nuclei, resulting in strongly destructive interferences of the nuclear transition matrix element. Nuclear model calculation with great computational efforts have been performed in the literature to reproduce the very low transition probability. Here, we will attempt to describe the nuclear physics behind this most unusual half-life.