In a series of three papers published in 2024[1-3],physicists in Austria,Germany,and the United States reported the first direct observations with table-top lasers of a new nuclear process,in which the nucleus of a th...In a series of three papers published in 2024[1-3],physicists in Austria,Germany,and the United States reported the first direct observations with table-top lasers of a new nuclear process,in which the nucleus of a thorium atom absorbs a photon and goes into an excited state,then re-emits the photon and returns to its ground state.This“thorescence”phenomenon“is exactly the same process as fluorescence,but it takes place inside the nucleus,”said Ekkehard Peik,professor and head of the department of time and frequency at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt(the German national metrology institute)in Braunschweig,Germany.展开更多
文摘In a series of three papers published in 2024[1-3],physicists in Austria,Germany,and the United States reported the first direct observations with table-top lasers of a new nuclear process,in which the nucleus of a thorium atom absorbs a photon and goes into an excited state,then re-emits the photon and returns to its ground state.This“thorescence”phenomenon“is exactly the same process as fluorescence,but it takes place inside the nucleus,”said Ekkehard Peik,professor and head of the department of time and frequency at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt(the German national metrology institute)in Braunschweig,Germany.