Experimental nuclear physics articles within Nature

Featured

  • Letter |

    A new imaging and spectroscopy approach combines the ability of magnetic resonance imaging to manipulate nuclear spins with the high sensitivity of γ-ray detection, enabling a greatly reduced number of nuclei to be used compared to conventional NMR signal detection.

    • Yuan Zheng
    • , G. Wilson Miller
    •  & Gordon D. Cates

  • Letter |

    Resonance ionization spectroscopy of nobelium (atomic number 102) reveals its ground-state transition and an upper limit for its ionization potential, paving the way to characterizing even heavier elements via optical spectroscopy.

    • Mustapha Laatiaoui
    • , Werner Lauth
    •  & Alexander Yakushev

  • Article |

    Direct detection of the 229Th nuclear clock transition has been achieved, placing direct constraints on transition energy and half-life; these results are a step towards a nuclear clock, nuclear quantum optics and a nuclear laser.

    • Lars von der Wense
    • , Benedict Seiferle
    •  & Peter G. Thirolf

  • Letter |

    The interaction between antiprotons, produced by colliding high-energy gold ions, is shown to be attractive, and two important parameters of this interaction are measured, namely the scattering length and the effective range.

    • L. Adamczyk
    • , J. K. Adkins
    •  & M. Zyzak

  • Letter |

    The exotic double-gamma nuclear decay has been observed in cases where the usual single-gamma decay is forbidden, but now a double-gamma decay of excited 137Ba is reported that is in competition with a single-gamma decay.

    • C. Walz
    • , H. Scheit
    •  & V. Yu. Ponomarev

  • Letter
    | Open Access

    The CPT theorem (the assumption that physical laws are invariant under simultaneous charge conjugation, parity transformation and time reversal) is central to the standard model of particle physics; here the charge-to-mass ratio of the antiproton is compared to that of the proton, with a precision of 69 parts per trillion, and the result supports the CPT theorem at the atto-electronvolt scale.

    • S. Ulmer
    • , C. Smorra
    •  & Y. Yamazaki

  • Article |

    Future rounds of nuclear arms control would ideally involve direct inspection of nuclear warheads using procedures that give inspectors high confidence about the authenticity of submitted nuclear items yet give no information about their design; this is now shown to be achievable using zero-knowledge protocols in neutron imaging of nuclear warheads.

    • Alexander Glaser
    • , Boaz Barak
    •  & Robert J. Goldston

  • Article |

    Neutrinos are known to have mass, in contradiction to the predictions of the standard model, and one explanation of this mass is that they are Majorana fermions; this conjecture could be proved by observation of the neutrinoless double-β decay process, but new experiments with 136Xe find no statistically significant evidence for this process.

    • J. B. Albert
    • , D. J. Auty
    •  & Y. B. Zhao

  • Letter |

    Fusion fuel gains greater than unity — which are crucial to the generation of fusion energy — are achieved on the US National Ignition Facility using the ‘high-foot’ implosion method, which reduces instability in the implosion of the fuel.

    • O. A. Hurricane
    • , D. A. Callahan
    •  & R. Tommasini

  • Letter |

    A high-precision parity-violating electron–quark scattering experiment provides measurements of a combination of electron–quark weak couplings with a precision five times higher than the single previous direct study, confirming the predictions of the electroweak particle-physics theory and providing constraints on parity-violating interactions beyond the standard model.

    • D. Wang
    • , K. Pan
    •  & X. Zheng

  • Letter |

    The masses of the exotic calcium isotopes 53Ca and 54Ca measured by a multi-reflection time-of-flight method confirm predictions of calculations including nuclear three-body interactions.

    • F. Wienholtz
    • , D. Beck
    •  & K. Zuber

  • Article |

    An experimental study of certain short-lived isotopes of radon and radium has found clear octupole deformation in the nuclei of the latter — that is, these nuclei are pear-shaped; the results enable discrimination between differing theoretical approaches to octupole correlations.

    • L. P. Gaffney
    • , P. A. Butler
    •  & M. Zielinska

  • News |

    Domestic facilities struggle for survival as funding is directed to international reactor.

    • Eric Hand

  • Letter |

    The difference between the mass of an atom and the sum of its building blocks (the binding energy) is a manifestation of Einstein's famous relation E = mc2. Superheavy elements have been observed, but our present knowledge of the binding energy of these nuclides is based only on the detection of their decay products, although they represent the gateway to the predicted 'island of stability'. Here, direct mass measurements of trans-uranium nuclides are reported, providing reliable anchor points en route to the island of stability.

    • M. Block
    • , D. Ackermann
    •  & C. Weber

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