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Party Pairs

 


Atoms in a gas can seem like partiers at a nanoscopic rave, with particles zipping around, pairing up, and flying off again in a seemingly random fashion. And yet physicists have come up with formulas that predict this behavior, even when the atoms are extremely close together and can tug and pull on each other in complicated ways.

The environment within the nucleus of a single atom seems similar, with protons and neutrons also dancing about. But because the nucleus is such a compact space, scientists have struggled to pin down the behavior of these particles, known as nucleons, in an atom’s nucleus. Models that describe the interactions of nucleons that are far apart broken down when the particles pair up and interact at close range.

Now an MIT-led team has simulated the behavior of protons and neutrons in several types of atomic nuclei, using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. The team explored a wide range of nuclear interaction models and found, surprisingly, that the formulas describing how atoms behave in a gas can be generalized to predict how protons and neutrons interact at close range in the nucleus.

When nucleons are less than 1 femtometer — 1 quadrillionth of a meter — apart, the researchers found another surprise: The particles pair up in the same way, regardless of whether they inhabit a small nucleus like helium or a more crowded one like calcium.


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