image: An artist impression of the valence-fluctuating ground state of plutonium is shown. Due to strong interactions between the itinerant conduction electrons (denoted in purple) and the localized valence electrons in plutonium, its electronic ground state fluctuates (center panel) between three distinct electronic configurations (shown on top) that contain 4 (5f4), 5 (5f5) and 6 (5f6) 5f electrons, respectively. Because the 5f4 and 5f5 valence configurations exhibit a magnetic moment (denoted by the arrows), whereas the 5f6 is nonmagnetic, the valence fluctuations simultaneously drive magnetic fluctuations, demonstrating that the magnetism in plutonium is not "missing" but dynamic. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the July 10, 2015, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by M. Janoschek at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM, and colleagues was titled, 'The valence-fluctuating ground state of plutonium.' view more
Credit: [Credit: This figure was created by Marc Janoschek.]