{"id":159171,"date":"2023-02-27T21:24:38","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T03:24:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/shape-shifting-experiment-challenges-interpretation-of-how-cadmium-nuclei-move"},"modified":"2023-02-27T21:24:38","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T03:24:38","slug":"shape-shifting-experiment-challenges-interpretation-of-how-cadmium-nuclei-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/shape-shifting-experiment-challenges-interpretation-of-how-cadmium-nuclei-move","title":{"rendered":"Shape-shifting experiment challenges interpretation of how cadmium nuclei move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/shape-shifting-experiment-challenges-interpretation-of-how-cadmium-nuclei-move.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Atomic nuclei take a range of shapes, from spherical (like a basketball) to deformed (like an American football). Spherical nuclei are often described by the motion of a small fraction of the protons and neutrons, while deformed nuclei tend to rotate as a collective whole.<\/p>\n<p>A third kind of motion has been proposed since the 1950s. In this motion, known as nuclear vibration, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/atomic+nuclei\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">atomic nuclei<\/a> fluctuate about an average shape. Scientists recently investigated cadmium-106 using a technique called Coulomb excitation to probe its <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nuclear+shape\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nuclear shape<\/a>. They found clear experimental evidence that the vibrational description fails for this isotope\u2019s nucleus. This finding is counter to the expected results.<\/p>\n<p>Research published in <i>Physics Letters B<\/i> builds on a long quest to understand the transition between spherical and deformed <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nuclei\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nuclei<\/a>. This transition often includes vibrational motion as an intermediate step. The new result suggests that <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/nuclear+physicists\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">nuclear physicists<\/a> may need to revise the long-standing paradigm describing how this transition occurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atomic nuclei take a range of shapes, from spherical (like a basketball) to deformed (like an American football). Spherical nuclei are often described by the motion of a small fraction of the protons and neutrons, while deformed nuclei tend to rotate as a collective whole. A third kind of motion has been proposed since the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}