{"id":88561,"date":"2019-03-11T13:22:44","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T20:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/physicists-solve-a-beta-decay-puzzle-with-advanced-nuclear-models"},"modified":"2019-03-11T13:22:44","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T20:22:44","slug":"physicists-solve-a-beta-decay-puzzle-with-advanced-nuclear-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/physicists-solve-a-beta-decay-puzzle-with-advanced-nuclear-models","title":{"rendered":"Physicists solve a beta-decay puzzle with advanced nuclear models"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/physicists-solve-a-beta-decay-puzzle-with-advanced-nuclear-models2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>An international collaboration including scientists at the Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE\u2019s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) solved a 50-year-old puzzle that explains why beta decays of atomic nuclei are slower than what is expected based on the beta decays of free neutrons.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, published in <i>Nature Physics<\/i>, fill a long-standing gap in physicists\u2019 understanding of beta decay, an important process stars use to create heavier elements, and emphasize the need to include subtle effects\u2014or more realistic physics\u2014when predicting certain nuclear processes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor decades, scientists have lacked a first-principles understanding of nuclear beta decay, in which protons convert into neutrons, or vice versa, to form other elements,\u201d said ORNL staff scientist Gaute Hagen, who led the study. \u201cOur team demonstrated that theoretical models and computation have progressed to the point where it is possible to calculate some decay properties with enough precision to allow for direct comparison to experiment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-03-physicists-supercomputers-year-old-beta-puzzle.html\">https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019&#45;03-physicists-supercomputers-...uzzle.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An international collaboration including scientists at the Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE\u2019s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) solved a 50-year-old puzzle that explains why beta decays of atomic nuclei are slower than what is expected based on the beta decays of free neutrons. The findings, published in Nature Physics, fill a long-standing gap in physicists\u2019 understanding [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88561","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\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}