Researchers study unusual and extremely short-lived species of hydrogen
Thursday, June 1, 2017 - 07:31
in Physics & Chemistry
The nuclei of atoms found in nature typically have about the same number of protons and neutrons, and are stable – that is they remain intact forever. Increase the imbalance between the numbers of protons and neutrons, however, and the lifetime of an atomic nucleus can decrease remarkably, sometimes to being so short that we wonder whether we should even call the system "a nucleus."