At the heart of every atomic nucleus, the strong interaction quietly dictates the structure of matter, yet for decades one of ...

Neutron stars are ultra-dense star remnants made up primarily of nucleons (i.e., protons and neutrons). Over the course of ...

Atomic nuclei are often described as orderly systems. Certain numbers of protons or neutrons, called magic numbers, usually produce especially stable and spherical nuclei. These numbers fill entire ...

For the first time, quarks and gluons were used to describe properties of atomic nuclei, which until now had been explained by the existence of protons and neutrons. The temporary pair of correlated ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Examining the smallest parts of the universe often takes the biggest kinds of equipment. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a unique piece of equipment the size of a building is ...

Primordial nucleosynthesis during the early universe generated hydrogen, helium, and minor lithium-7 before the cosmos cooled, halting further fusion. Stellar interiors synthesize elements up to iron ...

Researchers from TUM, working at CERN, have made a groundbreaking discovery that reveals how deuterons are formed. Another long-standing question in particle physics has been answered. Scientists ...

Neutron stars are some of the weirdest cosmic objects, and the greatest mysteries lie deep in their hearts. Neutron stars' surface gravities are so intense that the largest "mountains" are only a few ...

Does the proton decay? While this was a famous prediction of Grand Unified Theories (GUTS) developed in the 1970s and 1980s, experimentalists have ruled it out—or rather, put lower limits on its mean ...

An international research team with a Korean scientist has discovered an inversion phenomenon in 'symmetric nuclei'—where the ...

For decades, nuclear physicists believed that “Islands of Inversion” — regions where the normal rules of nuclear structure ...

Mirror magic: The "cores" of the exotic nuclei oxygen-22 and silicon-22 both resemble that of oxygen-16, with eight protons and eight neutrons. The neutron-rich oxygen isotope contains an additional ...