audio by album bollen

6:40 minutes (9.32 MB)

A ground state atomic nucleus can be something of a black box, masking subtle details about its structure behind the aggregate interplay of its protons and neutrons. This is one reason nuclear scientists are so keenly interested in isomers -- relatively long-lived excited-state nuclei that more easily give up their structural secrets to experimentalists. For years, gamma ray spectroscopy has been one of the only reliable means of studying isomers. But now scientists have a new tool at their disposal.