Browse Physics

A theoretical proposal offers a technique for storing an x-ray photon and releasing it with its quantum properties fully intact.

Theorists predict that the matter surrounding some black holes may be hot enough for nuclear fusion, which could generate lithium and deepen the mysteries surrounding lithium in the universe.

A neutron-rich nucleus can emit a neutron pair as a single unit as a product of nuclear decay.

Calculations suggest that a rapidly spinning oxygen nucleus can deform into a linear configuration of four small clusters in a row–the first clear evidence for such a “linear-chain” state in any nucleus.

A laser that emits visible light using atomic nuclei, rather than electrons, could be made from a thorium alloy. It could be a first step toward a gamma-ray laser.

The quark structure inside protons and neutrons changes based on the local nuclear environment, according to electron accelerator experiments.

The physics community was stunned to learn in the 1950s that some events, unlike billiard ball collisions, follow different rules in their mirror-image versions.

A surprising negative charge at the center of the neutron arises from an abundance of negatively-charged quarks with very high speeds.

Theorists predict that collisions can briefly create a beryllium nucleus in which neutrons bind two clumps of particles together the way electrons bind atoms into a molecule–in three very different configurations.

The mixture of a superconductor and a superfluid–as may occur inside a neutron star–could respond to the star’s magnetic field in ways never seen in earthly superconductors, according to a new theory. The strange material doesn’t fit into the two standard superconducting categories.

A theoretical model shows that fission–nuclei breaking apart–may be an important part of the process by which supernovae produce the heaviest elements.

In 1939 Hans Bethe described in detail the nuclear reactions that power the sun and other stars, leading to his Nobel Prize in 1967. His results relied heavily on the previous decades of advances in physics and astronomy.

Large nuclei undergoing fusion may lose phase coherence, which ordinarily occurs when quantum mechanical objects begin acting classically.

Particles containing strange quarks become lighter when embedded within nuclei, according to experiments that confirm an effect seen previously with up and down quarks.

Researchers created the superheavy nucleus hassium-270 for the first time. Its long lifetime of 22 seconds supports the theory of a second ‘island of stability’ for the heaviest elements.

Two experiments in 1946, showing how electromagnetic waves could flip atomic nuclei, eventually led to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Measurements of the breakup of the lithium-11 nucleus shed light on the behavior of its two loosely-bound neutrons.

The puzzling origins of some isotopes in the solar system are explained by accounting for blasts of antineutrinos in the first seconds of a supernova.

Gravitational waves from merging neutron star pairs could help reveal their mysterious and exotic material properties.

A 1948 paper used general relativity to provide the first quantitative description of the first moments after the big bang.