For the first time, scientists observe a new and rare decay mode where oxygen-13 breaks into three helium nuclei and a proton following beta decay. Scientists have previously observed interesting ...

Radioactive decay is the strange and almost mystical ability for one element to naturally and spontaneously transmute into another. In the process, those elements tend to emit deadly forms of ...

Alpha decay represents a fundamental mode of radioactive disintegration wherein an unstable nucleus emits an alpha particle—a tightly bound cluster of two protons and two neutrons. This process not ...

Hickory dickory dock, this nucleus could make a great clock. A special variety of the element thorium hosts an atomic nucleus that could be used to keep time, scientists say. In a first, researchers ...

Radioactive decay is a fundamental process in nature by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. Studying nuclear decay modes is crucial for understanding properties of atomic ...

An exotic and extremely rare nuclear decay that involves the simultaneous capture of two atomic electrons by a xenon-124 nucleus has been observed in a dark-matter detector. Physicists in the XENON ...

For the first time, researchers have directly observed an exotic type of radioactive decay called two-neutrino double electron capture. The decay, seen in xenon-124 atoms, happens so sparingly that it ...

Researchers have observed a rare nuclear decay. Namely, the team measured low-kinetic-energy protons emitted after the beta decay of a neutron-rich nucleus beryllium-11. Researchers from the National ...

In a new set of results, chemists have laid the foundation for a single-atom illumination strategy called barium tagging. Their achievement is the first known imaging of single atoms in a solid noble ...