News > Thickness of lead’s neutron ‘skin’ has been precisely measured
Thickness of lead’s neutron ‘skin’ has been precisely measured
27/04/2021 10:24 PM | Click to read full article
Some atomic nuclei are thin-skinned — they’re surrounded by a slim shell of neutrons.
Physicists now know how thick that neutron skin is for one particular type of nucleus. The skin of lead-208 — a variety of lead with 126 neutrons in addition to its 82 protons — is about 0.28 trillionths of a millimeter thick, researchers reported in Physical Review Letters.
