The Hoyle State: A Primordial Nucleus Behind the Elements of Life: Scientific American

The Hoyle State: A Primordial Nucleus Behind the Elements of Life: Scientific American: "Using supercomputers and new mathematical techniques, physicists are working to reveal how the Hoyle state atomic nucleus gives rise to the light elements that enable life, and how it drives the evolution of stars."

The Hoyle state is produced through a “triple alpha process” inside stars. Two alpha particles fuse to form a beryllium atom, and then a third alpha quickly fuses with it, creating the Hoyle state. This primordial nuclear state marks the starting point for most of the elements necessary for life.Image: Illustration: Courtesy of Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH


"Physicists say knowing the structure of the Hoyle state will help reveal how it gives rise to carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other light elements that compose the complex molecules of living things. The synthesis of these elements enables the genesis of life, but it also drives the evolution of stars."

"The quest to unravel the Hoyle state started in 1954 with what the astrophysics writer Marcus Chown has called “the most outrageous prediction” ever made in science. The theoretical astrophysicist Fred Hoyle reasoned that his own existence meant that an unknown, exotic state of the carbon atom with about 7.65 million electron volts of extra energy must arise inside dying stars, even though no one had ever detected spectral emissions from such an atom."

"“Hoyle postulated that this 7.65 MeV carbon had to exist in order for there to be life,” Hjorth-Jensen said. “Then, four or five years later, an experimental group in Caltech actually found this Hoyle state in emissions.”"
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