To achieve these results, the teams irradiated not only uranium-238, but also thorium-232, two nuclei that can split when they collide with a neutron (this is referred to as fissile nuclei). ![]() It is when the fragment attempts to return to its spherical shape to acquire greater stability that the energy released is converted into heat and rotational energy.” “ We have to think of the nucleus like a liquid drop,” explains Muriel Fallot, a researcher at Subatech (a joint laboratory affiliated to IMT Atlantique, CNRS and University of Nantes), who took part in the experiment. “ When it is struck by the neutron, it splits and each fragment is deformed, like a drop if it received an impact. 184 detectors and 1,200 hours of radiation The findings by the 37 teams are decisive: the second hypothesis is correct. The second was that the spin of the fragments is caused after fission, and that these spins are therefore independent of each other. In this case, there must be a correlation between the spins of the two fragments. The first, supported by the majority of physicists, was that this spin is created before fission. How do they acquire this angular momentum? What generates this rotation? Up to now, there had been two competing hypotheses. This is more or less how the nucleus spins like a top.Įven when the original nucleus is not spinning, the nuclei resulting from fission still spin. The spin is the equivalent, in the quantum world, of angular momentum. Some mysteries still remain, and among them is the spin of nucleus fragments. The mystery of spinning nucleiīut why is there a need to conduct this kind of experiment? Don’t we understand fission perfectly, since the phenomenon was discovered in the late 1930s by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, and Austrian physicist Lise Meitner? Aren’t there hundreds of nuclear fission reactors around the world, that allow us to understand everything? In a word – no. ![]() Several French teams took part in this discovery. Their findings, which offer insights into nuclear fission, have been published in the journal Nature. This is, in short, the experiment conducted by researchers from 37 institutes in 16 countries, led by the Irène Joliot-Curie Laboratory in Orsay, in the Essonne department. Or, more precisely, observe how these fragments spin. Take the nuclei of uranium-238 (the ones used in nuclear power plants), bombard them with neutrons, and watch how they break down into two nuclei of different sizes.
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