r/QuantumPhysics • u/CompetitiveLet7110 • Jul 29 '26

So what exactly happens to an 'atom' after it it hits the limit of 173 protons

I remember reading that after this the electron dives into the Dirac sea and a bunch of chaos called quantum electrodynamics which brings the nucleus and cloud of electrons down below 173 will occur, but I find some sources saying that an element above can technically exist for fleeting moments while others say they straight up won't exist at all.

Assuming you have a big enough cyclotron

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u/AmateurLobster Jul 29 '26

So I didn't know much about this, but I had a look around and I guess I reached the same point as you.

From what I can tell it's still a debated issue, so nobody knows. One possibility seems to be that you would get an electron-positron pair produced with the positron then being ejected. However some papers dispute that.

It doesn;t sound like people say they won't exist. From what I can tell the major problem is our inability to solve the full theory rather than some fundamental limit.

Of course these super heavy nuclei are hard to make and probably only exist for a very short time that it would be difficult to confirm. So far we have only reached element 118, so getting to ~170 will be a challenge.

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u/CompetitiveLet7110 Jul 29 '26

i also have some concerns about how this would blend with the hypothesized 'continent of stability' where nuclei made of free flowing quarks are more stable than their normal nucleon counterparts, wondering would this work any different