Ytterbium's Broken Symmetry: Largest Parity Violations Ever Observed In An Atom
Thursday, July 23, 2009 - 08:21
in Physics & Chemistry
The weak interaction has the shortest range of the fundamental forces and does some of the most peculiar things, like changing the flavor of quarks, governing the interactions of neutrinos, and violating parity -- nature's mirror symmetry. In ytterbium, researchers have measured the largest parity violations ever observed in an atom.