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Hassium is a chemical element with the symbol Hs and the atomic number 108. Hassium is highly radioactive; its most stable known isotopes have half-lives of approximately ten seconds. One of its isotopes, 270Hs, has magic numbers of both protons and neutrons for deformed nuclei, which gives it greater stability against spontaneous fission. Hassium is a superheavy element; it has been produced in a laboratory only in very small quantities by fusing heavy nuclei with lighter ones. Natural occurrences of the element have been hypothesised but never found.
In nuclear physics, atomic physics, and nuclear chemistry, the nuclear shell model is a model of the atomic nucleus which uses the Pauli exclusion principle to describe the structure of the nucleus in terms of energy levels. The first shell model was proposed by Dmitri Ivanenko in 1932. The model was developed in 1949 following independent work by several physicists, most notably Eugene Paul Wigner, Maria Goeppert Mayer, and J. Hans D. Jensen, who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions.
In nuclear physics, the island of stability is a predicted set of isotopes of superheavy elements that may have considerably longer half-lives than known isotopes of these elements. It is predicted to appear as an "island" in the chart of nuclides, separated from known stable and long-lived primordial radionuclides. Its theoretical existence is attributed to stabilizing effects of predicted "magic numbers" of protons and neutrons in the superheavy mass region.
Flerovium is a superheavy chemical element with symbol Fl and atomic number 114. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element. It is named after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, where the element was discovered in 1999. The lab's name, in turn, honours Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov. IUPAC adopted the name on 30 May 2012. The name and symbol had previously been proposed for element 102 (nobelium), but was not accepted by IUPAC at that time.
A nuclear isomer is a metastable state of an atomic nucleus, in which one or more nucleons (protons or neutrons) occupy higher energy levels than in the ground state of the same nucleus. "Metastable" describes nuclei whose excited states have half-lives 100 to 1000 times longer than the half-lives of the excited nuclear states that decay with a "prompt" half life (ordinarily on the order of 10−12 seconds). The term "metastable" is usually restricted to isomers with half-lives of 10−9 seconds or longer. Some references recommend 5 × 10−9 seconds to distinguish the metastable half life from the normal "prompt" gamma-emission half-life. Occasionally the half-lives are far longer than this and can last minutes, hours, or years. For example, the 180m
73Ta
nuclear isomer survives so long (at least 1015 years) that it has never been observed to decay spontaneously. The half-life of a nuclear isomer can even exceed that of the ground state of the same nuclide, as shown by 180m
73Ta
as well as 192m2
77Ir
, 210m
83Bi
, 242m
95Am
and multiple holmium isomers.
In nuclear physics, the semi-empirical mass formula (SEMF) is used to approximate the mass and various other properties of an atomic nucleus from its number of protons and neutrons. As the name suggests, it is based partly on theory and partly on empirical measurements. The formula represents the liquid-drop model proposed by George Gamow, which can account for most of the terms in the formula and gives rough estimates for the values of the coefficients. It was first formulated in 1935 by German physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, and although refinements have been made to the coefficients over the years, the structure of the formula remains the same today.
The nuclear force is a force that acts between the protons and neutrons of atoms. Neutrons and protons, both nucleons, are affected by the nuclear force almost identically. Since protons have charge +1 e, they experience an electric force that tends to push them apart, but at short range the attractive nuclear force is strong enough to overcome the electromagnetic force. The nuclear force binds nucleons into atomic nuclei.
Cluster decay, also named heavy particle radioactivity, heavy ion radioactivity or heavy cluster decay, is a rare type of nuclear decay in which an atomic nucleus emits a small "cluster" of neutrons and protons, more than in an alpha particle, but less than a typical binary fission fragment. Ternary fission into three fragments also produces products in the cluster size. The loss of protons from the parent nucleus changes it to the nucleus of a different element, the daughter, with a mass number Ad = A − Ae and atomic number Zd = Z − Ze, where Ae = Ne + Ze. For example:
Hassium (108Hs) is a synthetic element, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all synthetic elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be synthesized was 265Hs in 1984. There are 13 known isotopes from 263Hs to 277Hs and 1–4 isomers. The most stable isotope of hassium cannot be determined based on existing data due to uncertainty that arises from the low number of measurements. The confidence interval of half-life of 269Hs corresponding to one standard deviation is 16±6 seconds, whereas that of 270Hs is 9±4 seconds. It is also possible that 277mHs is more stable than both of these, with its half-life likely being 130±100 seconds, but only one event of decay of this isotope has been registered as of 2016.
Understanding the structure of the atomic nucleus is one of the central challenges in nuclear physics.
In nuclear physics, the valley of stability is a characterization of the stability of nuclides to radioactivity based on their binding energy. Nuclides are composed of protons and neutrons. The shape of the valley refers to the profile of binding energy as a function of the numbers of neutrons and protons, with the lowest part of the valley corresponding to the region of most stable nuclei. The line of stable nuclides down the center of the valley of stability is known as the line of beta stability. The sides of the valley correspond to increasing instability to beta decay. The decay of a nuclide becomes more energetically favorable the further it is from the line of beta stability. The boundaries of the valley correspond to the nuclear drip lines, where nuclides become so unstable they emit single protons or single neutrons. Regions of instability within the valley at high atomic number also include radioactive decay by alpha radiation or spontaneous fission. The shape of the valley is roughly an elongated paraboloid corresponding to the nuclide binding energies as a function of neutron and atomic numbers.
The atomic nucleus is the small, dense region consisting of protons and neutrons at the center of an atom, discovered in 1911 by Ernest Rutherford based on the 1909 Geiger–Marsden gold foil experiment. After the discovery of the neutron in 1932, models for a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons were quickly developed by Dmitri Ivanenko and Werner Heisenberg. An atom is composed of a positively charged nucleus, with a cloud of negatively charged electrons surrounding it, bound together by electrostatic force. Almost all of the mass of an atom is located in the nucleus, with a very small contribution from the electron cloud. Protons and neutrons are bound together to form a nucleus by the nuclear force.
Dorin Mircea Stelian Poenaru is a Romanian nuclear physicist and engineer. He contributed to the theory of heavy particle radioactivity.
Vilen Mitrofanovich Strutinsky was a Soviet nuclear physicist.
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, the fission barrier is the activation energy required for a nucleus of an atom to undergo fission. This barrier may also be defined as the minimum amount of energy required to deform the nucleus to the point where it is irretrievably committed to the fission process. The energy to overcome this barrier can come from either neutron bombardment of the nucleus, where the additional energy from the neutron brings the nucleus to an excited state and undergoes deformation, or through spontaneous fission, where the nucleus is already in an excited and deformed state.
Unbihexium, also known as element 126 or eka-plutonium, is the hypothetical chemical element with atomic number 126 and placeholder symbol Ubh. Unbihexium and Ubh are the temporary IUPAC name and symbol, respectively, until the element is discovered, confirmed, and a permanent name is decided upon. In the periodic table, unbihexium is expected to be a g-block superactinide and the eighth element in the 8th period. Unbihexium has attracted attention among nuclear physicists, especially in early predictions targeting properties of superheavy elements, for 126 may be a magic number of protons near the center of an island of stability, leading to longer half-lives, especially for 310Ubh or 354Ubh which may also have magic numbers of neutrons.
The Nilsson model is a nuclear shell model treating the atomic nucleus as a deformed sphere. In 1953, the first experimental examples were found of rotational bands in nuclei, with their energy levels following the same J(J+1) pattern of energies as in rotating molecules. Quantum mechanically, it is impossible to have a collective rotation of a sphere, so this implied that the shape of these nuclei was nonspherical. In principle, these rotational states could have been described as coherent superpositions of particle-hole excitations in the basis consisting of single-particle states of the spherical potential. But in reality, the description of these states in this manner is intractable, due to the large number of valence particles—and this intractability was even greater in the 1950s, when computing power was extremely rudimentary. For these reasons, Aage Bohr, Ben Mottelson, and Sven Gösta Nilsson constructed models in which the potential was deformed into an ellipsoidal shape. The first successful model of this type is the one now known as the Nilsson model. It is essentially a nuclear shell model using a harmonic oscillator potential, but with anisotropy added, so that the oscillator frequencies along the three Cartesian axes are not all the same. Typically the shape is a prolate ellipsoid, with the axis of symmetry taken to be z.
Władysław J. (Wladek) Świątecki was a Polish theoretical and nuclear physicist. He was one of the first proponents of the island of stability for superheavy elements, showing that it appears in a mass formula influenced by the presence of closed nuclear shells; he is also known for several other contributions in nuclear structure research.
Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz correction, also called the Ericson-Ericson Lorentz-Lorenz effect (EELL), refers to an analogy in the interface between nuclear, atomic and particle physics, which in its simplest form corresponds to the well known Lorentz-Lorenz equation for electromagnetic waves and light in a refractive medium.
Peter John Twin is a British experimental nuclear physicist. He is known for his research into the structure of atomic nuclei, based upon his pioneering work on techniques of gamma ray spectroscopy and, specifically, the Total Energy Suppression Shield Array (TESSA).
References
- ↑ Åberg, Sven (1993-05-31). "Superdeformed nuclei". Nuclear Physics A. 557: 17–38. doi:10.1016/0375-9474(93)90528-6. ISSN 0375-9474.
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