TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- In an experiment, a Florida State University researcher and colleagues created a silver atom with exotic properties never before observed.
Sam Tabor, director of the FSU Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory, performed the experiment at the GSI laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany, in collaboration with an international team.
In the research, a cigar-shaped atom was created using a particle collider. To the scientists' surprise, this atom demonstrated a novel kind of radioactive decay by spitting out two free protons at the same time.
"The purpose of this line of research is to expand our knowledge of nuclear physics beyond those nuclei present in nature by exploring nuclei with either fewer or more neutrons," Tabor said.
The team's findings have been published in the journal Nature.
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.ph...-silveratom.xml
