Two-Proton Correlations in the Decay of<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mmultiscripts><mml:mi>Fe</mml:mi><mml:mprescripts/><mml:none/><mml:mn>45</mml:mn></mml:mmultiscripts></mml:math>

The decay of extremely neutron-deficient 45Fe has been studied in detail by means of a novel type of a gaseous detector employing digital imaging to record tracks of charged particles. The two-proton radioactivity channel was clearly identified. For the first time, the angular and energy correlations between two protons emitted from the nuclear ground state were determined, indicating the genuine three-body character of this decay. The half-life of 45Fe was found to be 2.6+/-0.2 ms and the observed 2p decay branching ratio is 70+/-4%.