Powerful electron beams create extremely heavy hydrogen isotope for first-time ever
⁶H (one proton, five neutrons) and ⁷H (one proton, six neutrons) are the known isotopes with the highest neutron-to-proton ratios.
An international research team has successfully produced hydrogen-6 (⁶H), one of the most neutron-rich isotopes known, for the first time using electron scattering.
The results, obtained at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) particle accelerator, reveal a new technique for studying exotic nuclei.
“The experiment at the spectrometer facility at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) particle accelerator presents a new method for investigating light, neutron-rich nuclei and challenges our current understanding of multi-nucleon interactions,” said the researchers in a press release.
The findings reveal that ⁶H possesses a lower ground-state energy than many recent theories predicted.
This suggests that the interactions between the multiple neutrons within this extremely unstable nucleus are stronger than expected, which prompts a re-evaluation of multi-nucleon forces in very neutron-rich environments.
The experiment was a collaborative effort involving the A1 Collaboration at the Institute of Nuclear Physics at JGU, alongside scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, Tohoku University Sendai, and the University of Tokyo in Japan.