ELEMENTS’ Early Career Researchers Representative Dr. Meytal Duer and Principal Investigator Prof. Thomas Aumann from TU Darmstadt just published an article in Nature that describes the discovery of an isolated multi-neutron system. Congratulations!

So far, only neutron stars were known to produce chargeless nuclear systems. Now, for the first time, Duer and colleagues were able to create the isolated four-neutron system at the Radioactive Ion Beam Factory at RIKEN (Japan). The key success factor was the employment of a knockout reaction at large momentum transfer with a radioactive high-energy ⁸He beam.

You can find out more about the experiment here in English or German.