Browse Physics

Energetic particle jets created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions might create detectable shock waves as they travel through the quark-gluon plasma.

Various models in nuclear physics can be used to fit the masses of known nuclei, but the predictions tend to be inconsistent for masses that have not been measured. A thorough study examines this problem and provides a route to quantify these errors.

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

The long-held belief that nuclear states of very heavy elements that carry a large angular momentum would be unstable has been shattered in recent years. Now, a new experiment that can probe the outermost nuclear orbitals in 250Fm studies these states and poses a challenge to theory.

Heavy nuclei formed by fusion reactions often decay rapidly by fissioning into two fragments. Understanding how these decays occur and over what time scale provides a means to locate the superheavy “island of stability.”

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.

When an antiproton is fired into an atomic nucleus, will it live long enough for the nucleus to respond to the attractive strong force between the antiproton and the protons and neutrons? Calculations suggest that it would and predict the experimental signatures of an antiproton annihilating in a locally compressed nucleus.

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.

Two billion years ago, a naturally occurring nuclear reactor cycled on and off every 3 hours, according to clues from xenon isotopes.

The Physical Review delayed publishing the 1941 discovery of plutonium–which was used in an atomic bomb–until 1946 because of wartime security concerns.