Isotope near 'doubly magic' tin-100 flouts conventional wisdom
Sunday, October 31, 2010 - 19:30
in Physics & Chemistry
Tin may seem like the most unassuming of elements, but new experiments are yielding surprising properties in extremely short-lived isotopes near tin-100's "doubly magic" nucleus. Experiments performed with the exotic nucleus tin-101, which has a single neutron orbiting tin-100's closed shell of 50 protons and 50 neutrons, indicate an unexpected reversal in the ordering of lowest states in the nucleus. The finding appears to violate a standard scenario offered by the nuclear shell model that has been the cornerstone for understanding the atomic nucleus for more than half a century.