RESEARCH NEWS & VIEWS

because developmental studies have shown ago or before8, remain unclear. Perhaps even 2. Johnson, R. G. & Richardson, E. S. Fieldiana Geol.
that lampreys and hagfishes are more closely weirder fossil vertebrates remain to be dug up. ■ 12, 119–149 (1969).
3. McCoy, V. E. et al. Nature 532, 496–499 (2016).
related to each other than was previously 4. Clements, T. et al. Nature 532, 500–503 (2016).
imagined7, it could also represent an animal close Shigeru Kuratani and Tatsuya Hirasawa are 5. Richardson, E. S. Science 151, 75–76 (1966).
to the origin of cyclostomes before the lamprey– in the Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory, 6. Janvier, P. Early Vertebrates (Oxford Univ. Press,
1996).
hagfish divergence. That would mean that early RIKEN, Kobe, Hyogo 650-0047, Japan. 7. Oisi, Y., Ota, K. G., Fujimoto, S. & Kuratani, S. Nature
cyclostomes exhibited a tremendous range of e-mails: saizo@cdb.riken.jp; 493, 175–180 (2013).
morphological variety. Indeed, the details of the hirasawa@cdb.riken.jp 8. Kuraku, S. & Kuratani, S. Zool. Sci. 23, 1053–1064
(2006).
early divergence of cyclostomes, which has been 1. Traquair, R. H. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 6th ser. 6,
inferred to have occurred 390 million years 479–486 (1890). This article was published online on 13 April 2016.

NUCLE A R PHYSICS can be easily transformed in the interaction

with 4He.

Four neutrons together The authors observed that the 8He projectile
exchanges two units of charge with the 4He
target and becomes a beryllium-8 nucleus (8Be,

momentarily
four protons and four neutrons), the energy
of which was measured with high precision.
Because of charge conservation, the two pro-
tons in the target 4He nucleus are substituted
A system of four neutrons known as the tetraneutron is a hypothetical state in by neutrons, momentarily generating a four-
nuclear physics. The report of evidence for the fleeting existence of this state has neutron system in a quasi-bound state. This
implications for research into neutron stars. lasts only a few multiples of 10−22 seconds,
after which it disassembles into free neutrons.
This short-lived state appears as a bump in
CARLOS A. BERTULANI the confinement region. One long-sought state the energy spectrum of the 8Be nucleus that
& VLADIMIR ZELEVINSKY is the four-neutron system known as the tetra- emerges from the reaction.
neutron, which has no electric charge. Writing Nuclear forces are essentially identical

A
tomic nuclei are composed of protons in Physical Review Letters, Kisamori et al.1 pre- between all nucleons, whether they are pro-
and neutrons, generically known as sent evidence for the existence of such a state. tons or neutrons. So it might seem strange
nucleons. These are not genuine In the authors’ experiment, strongly bound that the tetraneutron is not bound but that the
elementary particles because they contain α-particles (composed of two protons and two α-particle of two protons and two neutrons is
quarks and gluons, which interact with each neutrons, and therefore identical to helium-4 strongly bound, despite the additional electrical
other through the strong force (one of the four nuclei) in liquid helium-4 (4He) are used as a repulsion between protons. The explanation is
fundamental forces of nature). The strong target for an incident beam of helium-8 (8He, based on the Pauli exclusion principle, which
inter­action has subtle properties, with the most the ‘projectile nucleus’). 8He has two protons forbids two identical nucleons from occupying
unsettling one being that quarks and gluons and six neutrons, and is produced in nuclear- the same quantum state. In the α-particle, all
are never free, only confined within nucleons. fragmentation reactions in which oxygen-18 four particles can be in the same state because
Theorists continue to struggle to find exact hits a beryllium target. The reaction between the two protons have opposite spins, as does the
8
solutions for various states of the highly com- He and 4He is an appropriate choice for pair of neutrons, so that all four nucleons are
plex quark–gluon systems, and to explain the generating tetraneutrons, because the four different. But for four neutrons, only one pair
nucleon–nucleon force that extends beyond ‘extra’ neutrons in 8He are weakly bound and can be in the lowest-energy state, forcing the
second pair into a state of higher energy, thus
making the tetraneutron unstable. 
Neutron star
By applying the principle of energy con-
a b servation to the studied nuclear reaction,
(1057 neutrons) 104 m
Kisamori and colleagues infer that the tetra-
neutron system has an internal excitation
Neutron Dineutron Tetraneutron energy of about 0.8 million electronvolts
10–15 m 10–14 m 10–14 m
(MeV); the excitation energy is the difference
between the tetraneutron mass and the mass
of four free neutrons. If this quantity were less
than zero, the system would be bound. For the
Bound or Unbound Unbound
observed tetraneutron it is positive, making it
unbound an unbound system that exists for a short time
before it decays into free neutrons. The statis-
tical error (± 0.65 MeV) and systematic error
Bound by gravity
(± 1.25 MeV) in the experiment are large, but
the case for the existence of the tetraneutron
is compelling. The width of the bump in the
Figure 1 | Neutron systems.  a, Neutrons have a radius of about one femtometre (10−15 m), and can be either 8
bound in a nucleus or free (although unbound neutrons decay within about 15 minutes). Dineutrons, Be energy spectrum is about 2.6 MeV, and this
composed of two unbound neutrons, are ten times larger and unstable. Kisamori and co-workers1 report energy uncertainty suggests that the state will
evidence for a tetraneutron (a system of four neutrons) that exists in a resonant state for about 10−22 seconds eventually decay to another quantum state.
before dissociating into free neutrons. b, If the existence of the tetraneutron state is confirmed, it will help to The hunt for the tetraneutron has been
clarify nuclear interactions in few-nucleon systems, and possibly even in neutron stars. going on for more than half a century, and

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 NEWS & VIEWS RESEARCH

experimentalists have announced the state’s generated by the nucleon–nucleon interaction

discovery before. In 2002, one collaboration and other quantum-mechanical effects.
claimed to have found a bound tetraneutron2 Nuclear physicists hope to develop a full
in an experiment based on the detection of understanding of how quarks and gluons
neutron clusters formed by fragmentation inside nucleons generate nucleon–nucleon
of beryllium-14 projectiles. But the result forces, and how many-body objects evolve
remains unconfirmed, and theorists quickly to form complex structures such as the ura-
showed that, based on the best knowledge of
the nucleon–nucleon interactions and other
arguments3,4, the existence of a bound tetra-
nium nucleus and neutron stars. This is a
formidable task, with well-understood parts
but also many missing links. If Kisamori and
50 Years Ago
neutron was nearly impossible. co-workers’ report of the tetraneutron state is Hypnotic Susceptibility. By Ernest R.
However, theorists could not rule out the confirmed, even as a short-lived resonance, it Hilgard — A large number of studies
existence of a tetraneutron as a short-lived will add another structure to the nuclear chart designed to investigate various
‘resonant’ state on the basis of a dineutron– that will help to improve our understanding of hypnotic phenomena have been
dineutron structure3,4. The dineutron state is the nuclear interaction. ■ carried out by Ernest Hilgard and
formed by two neutrons, and is not stable. It his co-workers on a considerable
is known as a virtual state: if its energy were Carlos A. Bertulani is in the Department number of college students during
reduced by 66 keV, then the dineutron system of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M the past eight years. Individual
would become bound. Decades earlier, it had University-Commerce, Commerce, Texas differences in ‘hypnotizability’ have
been proposed5 that dineutrons can become 75429-3011, USA. Vladimir Zelevinsky is been a major area of interest and in
bound in the presence of additional nucleons; in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the course of their investigations
this mechanism is responsible for the proper- Michigan State University, East Lansing, several scales were developed for the
ties of some bound nuclei that have a neutron Michigan 48824-1321, USA. quantitative assessment of hypnotic
excess, such as lithium-11, in which a pair of e-mails: carlos.bertulani@tamuc.edu; susceptibility … There are three
external neutrons forms a remote halo around zelevinsky@nscl.msu.edu general purpose scales and a scale
the core of lithium-9. for yielding profiles of hypnotic
1. Kisamori, K. et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 052501
The tetraneutron cannot form an atomic (2016). ability. Convincing statistical
nucleus because it is charge neutral and 2. Marqués, F. M. et al. Phys. Rev. C 65, 044006 (2002). evidence is given concerning their
therefore cannot hold electrons. But there 3. Bertulani, C. A. & Zelevinsky, V. J. Phys. G 29, validity and reliability … The
2431–2437 (2003).
is an intimate relationship between the 4. Pieper, S. C. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 252501 (2003).
latter part of the book is concerned
tetraneutron structure and theoretical studies 5. Migdal, A. B. Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 16, 238–241 with the relation of hypnotic
of neutron stars (Fig. 1), in which neutrons (1973). susceptibility to a number of
are compressed to densities more than 6. Shapiro, S. L. & Teukolsky, S. A. Black Holes, White personality variables … Although
Dwarfs, and Neutron Stars (Wiley, 1983).
1014 times that of water6. They are prevented some significant correlations do
from imploding by an outward pressure that is This article was published online on 6 April 2016. emerge, they are insufficient to
characterize the hypnotizable
person clearly.
NE UR O SCIENCE From Nature 30 April 1966

Fault tolerance 100 Years Ago

in the brain The large meteors which passed
over Northern America on
February 9, 1913, presented some
If stored information is erased from neural circuits in one brain hemisphere in unique features. The length of
mice, the lost data can be recovered from the other. This finding highlights a their observed flight was about
safeguarding mechanism at work in the brain. See Article p.459 2600 miles, and they must have
been moving in paths concentric, or
nearly concentric, with the earth’s
 B Y R O N M . Y U be rapidly restored by an unperturbed brain surface, so that they temporarily
region. formed new terrestrial satellites …

W
hen we send an e-mail or save a The brain can reorganize itself to restore The meteors were last seen from
file on our hard drives, informa- function after certain types of injury2, but this the Bermuda Islands … I have
tion can be lost, owing to dropped type of fault tolerance typically takes place over since made efforts to obtain further
data packets or corrupted bits. We typically do weeks. By contrast, many everyday brain func- observations from seafaring men
not notice such failures because systems are tions, such as putting a name to the face of an through the medium of the Nautical
designed with built-in mechanisms to restore acquaintance or hitting a tennis ball, take place Magazine, and have succeeded in
the lost data. Dropped packets are retransmit- on a timescale of seconds or less. Does a fault- procuring data which prove that
ted, and multiple copies of data are saved. The tolerance mechanism also operate in neural the meteors were observed during a
brain also stores and transmits information — circuits over these shorter timescales? course of 5500 miles from about
is it, too, fault-tolerant? In this issue, Li et al.1 Li et al. investigated whether regions lat. 51° N., long. 107° W., to lat. 5½° S.,
(page 459) report the perturbation of brain present in each of the brain’s two hemispheres long. 32½° W.
activity to erase stored information in mice. might act together to produce a rapid back-up From Nature 27 April 1916
They discover that the lost information can system for stored information — a mechanism

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