This process goes on and on for the 2.2 hours that the atom is in the metastable state and then the atom falls back down to the regular ground helium state. Scientists are able to study this ...

In a feat of modern-day alchemy, atom tinkerers have fooled hydrogen atoms into accepting a helium atom as one of their own. The camouflaged atom behaves chemically like hydrogen, but has four ...

Helium is the simplest multi-body atom. Its energy levels can be calculated with extremely high precision only relying on a few fundamental physical constants and the quantum electrodynamics (QED ...

Neutral helium microscopy and atom optics constitute an innovative imaging paradigm that exploits low-energy, charge-neutral helium atoms to non-destructively investigate surface properties at the ...

The interest in exotic atoms arises from the fact that they often facilitate the most basic experimental strategy used in physics: changing a single parameter or component in an otherwise complex ...

All of this would be great if it weren't for the fact that muons are unstable and typically decay in under two microseconds. Putting one in orbit around a helium nucleus adds to the complications ...

Instead of water, they used a nanoscopic droplet of liquid helium cooled to -273°C as the solvent – and instead of a grain of salt, they used an atom of sodium.. The researchers embedded a ...

Helium is the simplest element in the periodic table with more than one particle in its nucleus, yet state of the art theory and experiments on it don't add up.

All the latest science news on helium atom from Phys.org. Find the latest news, advancements, and breakthroughs.

A helium atom that has lost or gained an electron is an ion. Image gallery Skip image gallery. Image caption, The ion has two positive protons but one electron so it is a positive ion.