What happens to covalent bonds after the nuclear transmutation of an atom in a molecule? What happens when we have a decaying atom in a molecule, which has covalent bonds with other atoms? I assume some of the bonds will cease to exists, but I did not manage to find any rule about which bonds will be affected.
For example we have radiocarbon: ${^{14}_{6}C}$ with 4 bonds: -H, =O, -OH (so the molecule is HCOOH) and the carbon transmutates into ${^{14}_{7}N^{+}} + \beta^-$. What will be the new molecule or at least the intermediate after the decay?
edit:
I have very good stable candidates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrosonium
${HONO + H^+<=>NO^+ + H_2O}$
It is almost certain that $HONO$ will be the final product, since it is more stable than the $NO^+$. The question is how will the molecule rearrange after the transmutation, so after $HCOOH \rightarrow [HN^+OOH] + \beta^-$. The transmutation is interesting as well, since the nitrogen has smaller atomic radius, so all of the electrons will move closer to the nucleus. Does somebody have any clue what exactly happens with the valence shell of the atom and with the other electron shells right after the transmutation?
(Sorry if the question appears to be off-topic here, but I don't think it belongs to chemistry either, it involves both topics.)
 A: The energy of the decay has little to say about whether the covalent bond will remain after the decay.  The reason is because the $\beta$-decay electron (or positron since the question doesn't specify) will be moving so fast (compared to the orbital electrons that the cross-section for scattering will be quite small.  Since scattering off the orbital electrons is the only mechanism for transfer of the decay energy to the molecule (aside from a minuscule recoil of the decaying nucleus to conserve momentum), the most likely consequence is that the  rearrangement of orbitals in response to the increase or decrease of nuclear charge of the decaying atom will decide the question. 
For $\beta$ - decay the nuclear charge will increase by one unit producing a positive ion with more strongly bound orbitals.  The molecular bonds may rearrange, but I doubt they will be broken (a molecular ion will result).
For $\beta$ + decay the situation is more difficult to decide.  The nuclear charge will decrease by one unit leaving a negative ion with more weakly bound orbitals.  Whether these weaker orbitals will preserve the covalent molecular bond will likely depend upon the specifics of the molecule in question.  A branch of time dependent perturbation theory referred to as the "Sudden Approximation" was developed specifically for problems of this nature but getting an answer will likely require a research effort.
Of course for a small per cent of the events the outgoing $\beta$ particle will scatter off an electron involved in the covalent bond leading to ionization and dissolution of the bond.  The numerical calculation of this probability would require knowledge of the $\beta$ particle momentum which is indefinite since the energy of the decay is shared with the neutrino. 
A: I think I found the solution. The decay energy of radiocarbon is the following
$ 0.156476 MeV = 2.50702189 \cdot 10^{-17} kJ $
${2.51 \cdot 10^{-17} kJ} \cdot {6 \cdot 10^{23} \cdot 1/mol} = 1.51 \cdot 10^7 kJ/mol$
If we compare this decay energy to the energy of the chemical bonds table (~ 200-400kJ/mol), we will see that it exceeds that 100000 fold, which means that the chemical bonds will most likely break after the nuclear transmutation of radiocarbon. (There is a very slight chance, that the beta particle will carry all the decay energy away, but that is unlikely.)
