Helium nuclear properties

At low temperatures (15 million K), reactions between helium nuclei are inhibited by electrical repulsion. On the other hand, the nuclear properties of lithium, beryllium and boron nuclei (Z = 3,4, 5), and in particular their stability, are such that they are extremely fragile, decaying at temperatures of only 1 million K. For this reason, they are not formed in appreciable quantities in stars and cannot serve to bridge the gap between helium and carbon, species noted for their nuclear stability but which, it should be recalled, occur only in minute amounts in nature. 

Helium-3 [14762-55-1], He, has been known as a stable isotope since the middle 1930s and it was suspected that its properties were markedly different from the common isotope, helium-4. The development of nuclear fusion devices in the 1950s yielded workable quantities of pure helium-3 as a decay product from the large tritium inventory implicit in maintaining an arsenal of fusion weapons (see Deuterium AND TRITIUM) Helium-3 is one of the very few stable materials where the only practical source is nuclear transmutation. The chronology of the isolation of the other stable isotopes of the hehum-group gases has been summarized (4). 

The nuclear chemists at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory worked with extremely small samples of lawrencium with short half-lives, which made it difficult to determine the new elements chemical and physical properties. Most of its isotopes spontaneously fission as they give off alpha particles (helium nuclei). Lawrencium s melting point is about 1,627°C, but its boiling point and density are unknown. 

This is what they thought at first. I m giving you a bit of history here. The reaction of beryllium-8 and helium-4 seemed too slow. There was one chance that the reaction speed could be boosted—if carbon-12 had a very special property an energy almost exactly equal to the combined energy of beryllium-8 and helium-4 at temperatures in a red giant. Chemists called this kind of facilitated nuclear reaction resonant. If by some miracle this were true, then the triple-alpha process could work. ... 

To obtain hyperpolarizabilities of calibrational quality, a number of standards must be met. The wavefunctions used must be of the highest quality and include electronic correlation. The frequency dependence of the property must be taken into account from the start and not be simply treated as an ad hoc add-on quantity. Zero-point vibrational averaging coupled with consideration of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of populations amongst the rotational states must also be included. The effects of the electric fields (static and dynamic) on nuclear motion must likewise be brought into play (the results given in this section include these effects, but exactly how will be left until Section 3.2.). All this is obviously a tall order and can (and has) only been achieved for the simplest of species He, H2, and D2. Comparison with dilute gas-phase dc-SHG experiments on H2 and D2 (with the helium theoretical values as the standard) shows the challenge to have been met. 

Fig. 13. Energy levels of nuclei participating in thermonuclear reactions during the helium burning stage in red giant stars (after [13]). Survival of both 12C and 16O in red giants, from which terrestrial abundances result, depends upon the fortuitous circumstances of nuclear level structures and other properties of these nuclei...

Reformer tube heating with a high-temperature nuclear reactor is performed with helium, typically at 950 °C, as the heat source. The aim of reaching a heat flux density similar to that of the conventional method can be achieved by employing a helium-heated counterflow heat exchanger (see Fig. 2-11). Helium under pressure shows excellent heat transfer properties. Furthermore, precautions must be taken to minimize the effects of asymmetry or hot gas streaks in the helium flow as well as a non-uniform process gas flow. The materials of a helium-heated steam reformer should be selected such that the... 

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