In atoms, protons and neutrons orbit the nucleus in one or more shells. Each shell has a specific limit on the number of protons or neutrons it can hold. When these shells are full, the resulting ...

The nucleus at the heart of an atom is held together by a subtle balance between the nuclear force that binds protons and neutrons and the electric repulsion that tries to fling the positively charged ...

The nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus, more than 70 years old, stays firmly in place now that researchers from CERN’s nuclear physics facility ISOLDE have shown that the series of magic ...

An international team led by scientists from IPN Orsay (CNRS/Université Paris-Sud), CEA, and RIKEN (Japan) has performed the first spectroscopy of the extremely neutron-rich isotopes krypton 98 and ...

An international team of researchers recently measured the lifetime of a neutron outside of an atomic nucleus with extraordinary precision. By their measurements, the neutron survived for 14.629 ...

There are two coexisting, competing quantum shapes at low energy in 98Kr, never before seen for neutron-rich Kr isotopes, report scientists. The team also showed that these isotopes experience a ...