TITLE: Can the recoil to the nucleus induced due to radioactive decay be enough to break inter-molecular bonds?
QUESTION [1 upvotes]: let's say I have radioactive labelled molecule such as ${}^{99m}Tc$--Methyl diphosphonate
${}^{99m}Tc$ undergoes gamma decay and emits a photon of 140 KeV. Said molecule also forms a bond inside bones, and is therefore used in medical imaging.
What I'm wondering is that:
Since a photon is emitted, due to conservation of momentum the parent nucleus must receive the same amount of momentum in the opposite direction. (recoil)
can this impulse be enough to overcome the inter-molecular forces and make the entire molecule "escape" the bond? if it theoretically can, is it simply a factor of whether the imparted kinetic energy is greater than the binding energy?

REPLY [0 votes]: It all depends on the recoil energy-momentum. Normally, you can apply a sudden perturbation theory to see if the corresponding probability is essential. Read, for example, a chapter in Landau-Lifshitz textbook about atomic excitation/ionization due to a weak decay of the nucleus. The idea is the same. You may also read my paper here.
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