How long did it take our Sun to form in its stellar nursery? Scientists are now closer to an answer. They succeeded in the measurement of the bound-state beta decay of fully-ionized thallium ions at ...

The neutron is composed of two down quarks and an up quark and is stable under the strong and electromagnetic interactions. The weak interaction, however, can convert a down quark into an up quark ...

Left: “Mirror” nuclei lithium-8 and boron-8 undergo beta decay, then split into two alpha particles. Right: Radioactive ions from the ATLAS accelerator at Argonne National Laboratory are suspended in ...

Neutrino-free process: observing neutrinoless double beta decay could shed light on important mysteries of particle physics. A new technique to enable the detection of a hypothetical process called ...

First author of the publication Guy Leckenby works at the storage ring ESR at GSI/FAIR. Current calculations estimate that the formation of our Sun from the progenitor molecular cloud took about a few ...

For the best part of 30 years, physicists have been looking for a very rare nuclear process known as neutrinoless double beta decay. With discovery still elusive, an international team of researchers ...

The observation of neutrinoless double beta decay would suggest that, by itself, the Standard Model Higgs cannot give mass to neutrinos. Last year, physicists discovered the long-sought Higgs boson, ...

Deep underground, in a cavern beside the Gran Sasso Tunnel in the Apennines Mountains near Rome, physicists are stacking blocks made of small, transparent crystals containing the isotope tellurium-130 ...

The KATRIN (Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino) experiment has provided fresh insights into sterile neutrinos. Neutrinos ...

Transmuting one element into another (usually gold, of course) was the stuff of fevered dreams and fanciful imaginations for alchemists way back in the day. It turns out that nature does it all the ...

To understand nuclear decay equations. How to measure the activity of radioactive sources. Spontaneously means that the process of radioactive decay can not be speeded up or slowed down by physical ...