Aluminum isotope
Experiment creates surprise isotope
Physicists have created the heaviest isotope yet of magnesium, but in their experiments an unexpected isotope of aluminum also showed up. The findings could help astrophysicists understand occasional X-ray emissions from neutron stars that are growing in mass.
The 7-day-long experiment took place at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), an atom smasher at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Hoping to test the limits of how many extra neutrons will bind to an atomic nucleus, researchers were trying to create magnesium-40, a heavyweight element with 18 more neutrons than the most common isotope, magnesium-22. Standard theory says that magnesium-40 should be the heaviest isotope of the element that can exist, if only for a fleeting instant, before decaying.
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Like Adam in the book of Genesis, the heavy magnesium nuclei started appearing on the fifth day of the experiment. The researchers picked up three of them among the quadrillion particles produced. And it was very good, but then something even more interesting happened (think Eve). The detector recorded 23 particles whose charge and mass marked them as aluminum-42, the researchers report in the Oct. 25 Nature.
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According to Baumann, most theories had predicted that aluminum-42 wouldn’t exist. While physicists know that the strong nuclear force keeps atomic nuclei together, they cannot calculate exactly the complex interplay of forces among neutrons and protons. Several competing models aim to approximate this interplay. “The range of predictions is pretty broad,” says Baumann.
[Sciencenews, Read More... ]
