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A photon is absorbed by the ground state of helium-4. This excites the transition to the first excited state of helium-4, which sits just above the energy threshold for separation into a proton and a hydrogen-3 nucleus.

Exciting the Alpha Particle

New calculations confirm recent experimental results on the transition between the alpha particle and its first excited state.

Physicists modeled gold-gold collisions at different energies to probe fluid properties over a range of temperatures and baryon densities. The dashed line represents the region where ordinary nuclear matter is expected to transition to free quarks and gluons.

How Sticky Is Dense Nuclear Matter?

Scientists use a large-scale statistical analysis to extract the viscosity of hot, dense nuclear matter created at different heavy ion collision energies.

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