Skip to main content
Particles and interactions

Particles and interactions

Pions form a new kind of helium

11 May 2020
Artistic representation of pionic helium in laser light
Pionic helium In this experiment, a pion – shown here with one orange and one blue particle representing its quark and anti-quark – replaces one of the two electrons in the helium atom. This new metastable atom is then excited with laser light (shown here in red) to probe its properties. (Courtesy: Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics/Thorsten Naeser)
The ability to make artificial atoms containing exotic particles in place of electrons is giving phy

You’ve reached the limit of what you can view on Physics World without registering

If you already have an account on Physics World, then please sign in to continue reading

If you do not yet have an account, please register so you can

  • Access more than 20 years of online content
  • Choose which e-mail newsletters you would like to receive
Copyright © 2024 by IOP Publishing Ltd and individual contributors