The Louisiana Tech University Physics program will present the fourth Wallace Herbert Memorial Astronomy Lecture: A Mission to Touch the Sun during Homecoming Week.
Herbert Memorial Astronomy Lecture aims to touch the sun kedm.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kedm.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Rakitha Beminiwattha, Assistant Professor of Physics at Louisiana Tech University, and Louisiana Tech Physics doctoral students Yufan Chen and Devaki Bhatta Pathak (who graduated in Winter Quarter 2020), were among a team of international researchers who have helped to measure the neutron distribution in a heavy nucleus, specifically, that of lead, and published the most precise measurement to date of the neutron distribution from the Lead (Pb) Radius Experiment (PREX) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia.
Working with experts from 32 prestigious institutions around the world, Beminiwattha, Chen, and Pathak have determined that the heavy nucleus of lead has an unexpectedly thick skin of neutrons; this layer of neutrons on the outside of a lead nucleus is twice as thick as physicists previously thought.