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A doubly magic nucleus that has two faces

The neutron-rich nickel nucleus 78Ni is difficult to excite and, once excited, has competing spherical and deformed shapes. These intriguing properties make 78Ni a valuable testing ground for nuclear theory.
  1. Gaute Hagen

    1. Gaute Hagen is in the Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA.

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  2. Thomas Papenbrock

    1. Thomas Papenbrock is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA.

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Not all atomic nuclei are created equal. ‘Doubly magic’ nuclei have fully occupied shells of protons and neutrons, the subatomic particles known generically as nucleons. Such nuclei are therefore more strongly bound together and more difficult to excite than their neighbours on the Segrè chart — a 2D grid in which nuclei are arranged by their proton and neutron numbers. The simple structure of doubly magic nuclei makes them the cornerstone of our understanding of nuclear physics. This is because their neighbours can be described in terms of a few extra interacting nucleons, therefore turning a quantum many-body problem into a few-body problem. Only a handful of doubly magic nuclei are known. Writing in Nature, Taniuchi et al.1 identify the newest member of this elite club: the nickel nucleus 78Ni, which consists of 28 protons and 50 neutrons.

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Nature 569, 49-50 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01321-4

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