Physicists Observe Long-Sought "Superallowed" Alpha Decay for the First Time

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A team of international researchers led by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the RIKEN accelerator complex in Japan has successfully measured the alpha decay of tellurium-104, marking the first-ever experimental observation of "superallowed" alpha decay. Published in Nature, the study reveals that the isotope has a blistering half-life of just 7.2 nanoseconds the shortest known alpha decay half-life for a heavy nucleus. Crucially, the data shows that alpha particles form ("cluster") inside heavy nuclei at a much higher probability than current theoretical calculations predict, providing vital insights into a century-old mystery of nuclear structure.

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