Predicted state of atomic collapse seen for first time
Atomic collapse, a phenomenon first predicted in the 1930s based on quantum mechanics and relativistic physics but never before observed, has now been seen for the first time in an “artificial nucleus” simulated on a sheet of graphene. The observation not only provides confirmation of long-held theoretical predictions, but could also pave the way for new kinds of graphene-based electronic devices, and for further research on basic physics.The achievement, by a team of scientists from MIT, the University of California at Berkeley, and other institutions was reported online last week and will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Science.Leonid Levitov, a professor of physics at MIT and a co-author of the paper, says this work follows up on an early success of quantum mechanics that showed why matter is stable: It detailed how the positive charge of an atomic nucleus, and the negative charge of its surrounding electrons,...