# Presenting a nuclear reaction in LaTeX

I wanted to know what is the best way to present a nuclear reaction with the exponents and index of the atoms A and Z being in front of the element? Thanks in advance.

• Please make your question clearer to us by (1) adding a minimal compilable code and (2) a sketch of what you want, because, unfortunately, we are not all physicists. – user156344 May 21 '19 at 15:14
• mhchem was written to solve your problem. – Only The Paranoid Survive May 21 '19 at 15:18
• As an addition to the previous comment: You might want to have a look at page 6 of the mhchem manual (section Isotopes). An example from the manual: \ce{^{227}_{90}Th+}) – leandriis May 21 '19 at 15:20
• Could you please give a green check to mnchem's best answer, please? In my opinion the best answer, in this case is from the other user. Thank you. – Sebastiano May 23 '19 at 21:29
• I like correctness and I thank you very much. – Sebastiano May 23 '19 at 21:54

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[version=4]{mhchem}
\begin{document}
\section{The discovery of \ce{^4_2He}}
$\ce{^4_2He + ^27_13Al -> ^31_15P -> ^30_15P + ^1_0n}$

\sffamily Works also with text fonts (\ce{^4_2He}).
\end{document}


For a special nuclear reaction in LaTeX, I have taken a particular reaction here into this link https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/latex-help-for-nuclear-reactions.14912/ using isotope package. I use often this solution just as alternative to mhchem package.

EDIT: --> for the comment of the user @mhchem.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\bfseries}
\usepackage{isotope}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\begin{document}

Text mode: \textcolor{red}{\isotope[4][2]{He}} or normal without color \isotope[4][2]{He} and also for the section.
\section{The discovery of \isotope[4][2]{He}}

In math-mode you can have the same thing:

$\isotope[4][2]{He}+\isotope[27][13]{Al}\rightarrow\isotope[31][15]{P}\rightarrow\isotope[30][15]{P}+\isotope[1][0]{n}$
\end{document}


Also isotope package can have a bold formula in the section in text mode.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

\usepackage{sectsty}
\allsectionsfont{\bfseries\boldmath}
\usepackage{isotope}

\begin{document}

\section{The discovery of \isotope[4][2]{He}}

\end{document}

• \isotope is not properly working with text fonts. Try adding \sffamily to the code (or do \section{The discovery of \isotope[4][2]{He}}), and you'll see that it will use math font. – mhchem May 23 '19 at 10:39
• @mhchem Kind user, I hope I understand your comment. Thank you for the report received. My best regards. – Sebastiano May 23 '19 at 12:33