In nuclear physics, the Bateman equation is a mathematical model describing abundances and activities in a decay chain as a function of time, based on the decay rates and initial abundances. The model was formulated by Ernest Rutherford in 1905^[1] and the analytical solution was provided by Harry Bateman in 1910.^[2]

If, at time t, there are ${\displaystyle N_{i}(t)}$ atoms of isotope ${\displaystyle i}$ that decays into isotope ${\displaystyle i+1}$ at the rate ${\displaystyle \lambda _{i}}$, the amounts of isotopes in the k-step decay chain evolves as:

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}{\frac {dN_{1}(t)}{dt}}&=-\lambda _{1}N_{1}(t)\\[3pt]{\frac {dN_{i}(t)}{dt}}&=-\lambda _{i}N_{i}(t)+\lambda _{i-1}N_{i-1}(t)\\[3pt]{\frac {dN_{k}(t)}{dt}}&=\lambda _{k-1}N_{k-1}(t)\end{aligned}}}$

(this can be adapted to handle decay branches). While this can be solved explicitly for i = 2, the formulas quickly become cumbersome for longer chains.^[3] The Bateman equation is a classical master equation where the transition rates are only allowed from one species (i) to the next (i+1) but never in the reverse sense (i+1 to i is forbidden).

Bateman found a general explicit formula for the amounts by taking the Laplace transform of the variables.

${\displaystyle N_{n}(t)=N_{1}(0)\times \left(\prod _{i=1}^{n-1}\lambda _{i}\right)\times \sum _{i=1}^{n}{\frac {e^{-\lambda _{i}t}}{\prod \limits _{j=1,j\neq i}^{n}\left(\lambda _{j}-\lambda _{i}\right)}}}$

(it can also be expanded with source terms, if more atoms of isotope i are provided externally at a constant rate).^[4]

While the Bateman formula can be implemented in a computer code, if ${\displaystyle \lambda _{j}\approx \lambda _{i}}$ for some isotope pair, catastrophic cancellation can lead to computational errors. Therefore, other methods such as numerical integration or the matrix exponential method are also in use.^[5]

For example, for the simple case of a chain of three isotopes the corresponding Bateman equation reduces to

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&A\,{\xrightarrow {\lambda _{A}}}\,B\,{\xrightarrow {\lambda _{B}}}\,C\\[4pt]&N_{B}={\frac {\lambda _{A}}{\lambda _{B}-\lambda _{A}}}N_{A_{0}}\left(e^{-\lambda _{A}t}-e^{-\lambda _{B}t}\right)\end{aligned}}}$

Which gives the following formula for activity of isotope ${\displaystyle B}$ (by substituting ${\displaystyle A=\lambda N}$)

${\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}A_{B}={\frac {\lambda _{B}}{\lambda _{B}-\lambda _{A}}}A_{A_{0}}\left(e^{-\lambda _{A}t}-e^{-\lambda _{B}t}\right)\end{aligned}}}$

• Harry Bateman
• List of equations in nuclear and particle physics
• Transient equilibrium
• Secular equilibrium
• Pharmacokinetics, loose applicability