Physicists Discover an Atomic Oddity

[zavvy]

<b>Physicists Discover an Atomic Oddity</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />Working with an international team of scientists, a Florida State University physics professor has taken part in an experiment that resulted in the creation of a silver atom with exotic properties never before observed. The team's observations represent another step forward in science's long journey to understand the nuclear reactions that power stars and produce all matter. <br /><br />Sam Tabor, a professor of experimental nuclear physics at FSU and director of the university's Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory, recently performed the experiment at the GSI laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany, in collaboration with the international team. In the experiment, a cigar-shaped atom was created using a particle collider. To the scientists' surprise, this atom demonstrated a novel kind of radioactive decay by spitting out two free protons at the same time. <br /><br />Radioactive decay normally involves the emission of one of three types of particle: a helium nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons, an electron or a photon. Exotic atoms engineered to contain fewer neutrons than in the atom's natural state were expected to break down by emitting protons one at a time. But the correlated two-proton decay hadn't been seen before and represents a new form of radioactivity. <br /><br />The team's findings were published in the Jan. 19 issue of Nature, the world's foremost scientific weekly journal. <br /><br />"The purpose of this line of research is to expand our knowledge of nuclear physics beyond those nuclei present in nature by exploring nuclei with either fewer or more neutrons," Tabor said. "This will help us to understand even the stable nuclei. Another motivation is the fact that such unstable nuclei play important roles in astrophysics and the production of the elements on Earth. We cannot fully understand the astrophysical process

 

[nexium]

at once = at the same time plus or minus how many pico seconds? Neil

 

[zavvy]

I don't know, it doesn't mention it in the article.<br /><br />I thought this quote was interesting..<br /><br /><i>The deficit of neutrons in the silver had deformed the nuclei from spheres into fat cigar shapes. In some cases the proton pairs jumped out from the same end of the cigar, at other times from opposite ends, but they were always perfectly synchronized, Tabor said. <br /><br />"It's like there's a captain on board telling them exactly when to dive," he added. </i>

 

[mlorrey]

It seems obvious that, given the quantum nature of static charge, the neutrons moderate the charge of protons in a nucleus so that they can stay together despite their like charges. Too few neutrons means the charge exceeds the nuclear force by 2 even positive charges and two protons are expelled to regain balance. Given the elongation of the nucleus by the neutron shortfall, and what we know about electrostatic force, the force would be greatest at the ends of the elongated nucleus, which is why protons are emitted from those points, just as negatively charged needles emit electrons from their pointy ends.

 

[harmonicaman]

Can transmutation be far behind?

 

[mlorrey]

the cost of producing such collisions is so high as to exceed the value of the precious metal produced by factors of 10-1000.

 

[harmonicaman]

Hmmm...<br /><br />Seems like the cost factor is similar to the amount of money it would take to mine valuable ores from space for use on Earth; some things just aren't meant to be.

 

[mikeemmert]

I imagine it's a lot more expensive than 10-1000 times. This is fuzing nickel and calcium, not producing beryllium 7 or just fuzing a proton or even an alpha particle with something. This is a large nucleus collision.