After 20 Years.. Unveiling the "Nuclear Side" of the Gold Mystery

SadaNews - In the depths of the universe, gold is not born in mines or in the depths of planets, but in the events of star collapses and violent collisions. There, in environments saturated with neutrons and energy, a rapid nuclear chain begins that produces the heavy elements we know today, such as gold and platinum.

However, although the general idea has been known for years, the intricate details that lead from unstable atomic nuclei to these precious elements have remained elusive, as some key links in this chain occur in very rare and short-lived nuclei, which are difficult to capture in the lab.

The Nuclear Picture

In a new study published in the journal "Physical Review Letters" and led by researchers from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, conducted at the ISOLDE facility of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), important results have emerged about how strange nuclei decay along the path of what is called the rapid neutron capture process. This process is the physical pathway that scientists believe is responsible for producing a large portion of the elements heavier than iron in the universe.

What is new here is not just a small addition, but a direct improvement in the nuclear picture that astrophysical models rely on to understand the origins of gold and other heavy elements.

To understand the importance of this work, one can imagine the atomic nucleus as a small body receiving a rapidly accelerating barrage of neutrons. With each new neutron, the nucleus becomes heavier and more fragile. Once it reaches a state of extreme instability, it begins to disintegrate or transform into more stable forms.

On paper, this process seems understandable, but the problem is that some of its stages do not pass through simple channels, but rather through very complex and rapid decays, including a decay known as delayed beta decay accompanied by the emission of two neutrons. This type of decay has remained difficult to measure, as it occurs in rare nuclei, and because neutrons themselves are elusive particles that are hard to track accurately.

In this experiment, the team began with a very rare isotope, Indium-134. When this isotope decays, it produces excited states in isotopes of Tin, such as Tin-134, Tin-133, and Tin-132.

The Neutron Detector

By using an advanced neutron detector built at the University of Tennessee, the researchers were finally able to measure the energies of neutrons linked to the emission of two delayed neutrons following beta decay. This is the first time after 20 years that such a detailed measurement has been achieved for a nucleus that is indeed on the path of the rapid neutron capture process, meaning the true path that nature takes in the production of heavy elements.

This result is very significant, as scientists previously knew that this type of emission could occur, but they had not succeeded in measuring the energies of the neutrons in this way.

In simpler terms, it was not just a matter of knowing that the nucleus emits two neutrons, but understanding exactly how that happens, how much energy these neutrons carry, and what that reveals about the internal structure of the nucleus.

This precise information is what allows theories to transform from general ideas to usable models in simulating collapsing stars and neutron star collisions.

In addition to the above, the researchers finally observed a rare nuclear state in Tin-133 that scientists have been searching for for about 20 years. Most importantly, they found that the nucleus does not behave after the neutron emissions with the simple randomness that traditional models assumed, but retains some memory of its previous state.

In simple terms, the study did not create gold or discover its location, but revealed a small yet very important nuclear detail in the chain leading to the formation of heavy elements like gold, which helps scientists build more precise models linking the behavior of extremely strange nuclei in the lab with the violent cosmic events that create these elements in the universe.

Source: Various websites