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How do you excite a helium nucleus?

It sounds like the setup to a joke, the punchline being that you tell it there's cake in the dining room, but I am honestly curious?

Laser bombardment? Running it through a particle accelerator? Pointing out the girl helium over at the bar looked at it?

Ok, sure, they shot electrons at it, but why would that have any real, measurable effect on the nucleus?

What are the conditions that qualify as "excited" for a helium nucleus? Is it just the "balooning", or is there some real meaning to the term?

I have so many questions.




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