Conflicting Results on a Long-Lived Nuclear Isomer of Hafnium
Date: Saturday, May 08, 2004 @ 21:02:21 UTC
Topic: Science
Conflicting Results on a Long-Lived Nuclear Isomer of Hafnium Have Wider Implications
Since 1999, a collaboration led by Carl Collins (University of Texas at Dallas) has been reporting evidence for the x-ray induced release of energy stored in an unusually long-lived nuclear isomer of hafnium-178. Collins's claims have aroused a public debate whose acrimony reflects issues that go far beyond the interesting but normally staid physics of nuclear isomers.
The Texas collaboration purports to have demonstrated that a 10-keV x-ray photon can precipitate a prompt 2.45-MeV gamma-ray cascade as the isomer 178Hfm2 relaxes to the stable nuclear ground state. Normally, the isomer's halflife is 31 years. Such triggered release of nuclear energy, if it is indeed possible, raises the prospect of radically new weapons and energy-storage technologies.
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-5/p21.html
See also Scary Things Come in Small Packages
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