{"id":238467,"date":"2026-06-06T02:19:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/critical-te-104-decay-measurements-may-help-answer-century-old-alpha-particle-formation-question"},"modified":"2026-06-06T02:19:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T07:19:48","slug":"critical-te-104-decay-measurements-may-help-answer-century-old-alpha-particle-formation-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/critical-te-104-decay-measurements-may-help-answer-century-old-alpha-particle-formation-question","title":{"rendered":"Critical Te-104 decay measurements may help answer century-old alpha particle formation question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/critical-te-104-decay-measurements-may-help-answer-century-old-alpha-particle-formation-question.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>University of Tennessee, Knoxville physicists and their colleagues have made critical measurements of the lifetime and decay energy of tellurium-104 (Te-104), an important step in answering a century-old question and understanding how hundreds of nuclei decay. The results are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-026-10581-w\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Nature.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Robert Grzywacz led the experimental team at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN in Japan. He explained how the results match decades-old predictions that tellurium-104 is a special case in alpha decay, a process where an alpha particle (a strongly bound system of two protons and two neutrons) tunnels through the barrier surrounding the nucleus where it resides. Though alpha radioactivity was discovered more than 125 years ago, where the particle comes from is still a mystery, especially in nuclei that have large numbers of protons and neutrons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlpha decay is the oldest decay mode,\u201d Grzywacz said. \u201cThe big question is how the alpha particle forms in heavy nuclei, which are known to have uniform matter distribution. There must be a mechanism which causes local \u2018clump\u2019 or \u2018cluster\u2019 formation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>University of Tennessee, Knoxville physicists and their colleagues have made critical measurements of the lifetime and decay energy of tellurium-104 (Te-104), an important step in answering a century-old question and understanding how hundreds of nuclei decay. The results are published in Nature. Professor Robert Grzywacz led the experimental team at the Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238467","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=238467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}