what type of reaction is the decay of carbon-14
Carbon-14 There are three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon on Earth: 99% of the carbon is carbon-12, 1% is carbon-13, and carbon-14 occurs in trace amounts, i.e., making up about 1 or 1.5 atoms per 1012 atoms of the carbon in the atmosphere. Carbon-12 and carbon-13 are both stable, while the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730±40 years.[3] Carbon-14 decays into nitrogen-14 through beta decay.[4] A gram of carbon containing 1 atom of carbon-14 per 1012 atoms will emit 0.2[5] beta particles per second. The primary natural source of carbon-14 on Earth is cosmic ray action on nitrogen in the atmosphere, and it is therefore a cosmogenic nuclide. However, open-air nuclear testing between 1955–1980 contributed to this pool.
Alpha decay Alpha decay or α-decay is a type of radioactive decay in which an atomic nucleus emits an alpha particle (helium nucleus) and thereby transforms or 'decays' into an atom with a mass number that is reduced by four and an atomic number that is reduced by two. An alpha particle is identical to the nucleus of a helium-4 atom, which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It has a charge of +2e and a mass of 4u. For example, uranium-238 decays to form thorium-234. Alpha particles have a charge +2, but as a nuclear equation describes a nuclear reaction without considering the electrons – a convention that does not imply that the nuclei necessarily occur in neutral atoms – the charge is not usually shown.