Key Points
- MIT physicists have a new way to study the inside of an atom’s nucleus. The technique uses a special molecule as a “microscopic particle collider.”
- It uses the atom’s own electrons as messengers to carry information out of the nucleus.
- The method will be used to study the pear-shaped radium atom.
- The research could help solve the mystery of why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Physicists at MIT have found a clever new way to peek inside an atom’s nucleus, using the atom’s own electrons as tiny messengers. The technique published in Science, which uses molecules as microscopic “particle colliders,” is a breakthrough that could help solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics: why there is so much more matter than antimatter in the universe.
Normally, studying the inside of an atom requires massive, miles-long particle accelerators. But this new, “tabletop” method is much simpler.
The researchers created a special molecule, radium monofluoride, which contains a radium atom. Inside this molecule, the radium atom’s electrons are squeezed in a way that encourages them to dip into the atom’s nucleus briefly.
When the electrons pop back out, they carry with them a “message” in the form of a tiny energy shift. By precisely measuring this shift, the scientists can learn about the nucleus’s internal structure. “We now have proof that we can sample inside the nucleus,” said Professor Ronald Fernando Garcia Ruiz.
The team plans to use this new technique to map the “magnetic distribution” inside the radium nucleus for the first time. Radium is a special, pear-shaped atom, and scientists believe that this asymmetry could make it the perfect place to look for tiny violations of the fundamental laws of physics.
Finding such a violation could be the key to explaining the matter-antimatter imbalance that has long puzzled scientists.
