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Study of levitating nanoparticles using ultracold neutrons

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 نشر من قبل Valery Nesvizhevsky
 تاريخ النشر 2012
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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Physical adsorption of atoms, molecules and clusters on surface is known. It is linked to many phenomena in physics, chemistry, and biology. Usually the studies of adsorption are limited to the particle sizes of up to ~10^2-10^3 atoms. Following a general formalism, we apply it to even larger objects and discover qualitatively new phenomena. A large particle is bound to surface in a deep and broad potential well formed by van der Waals/ Casimir-Polder forces. The well depth is significantly larger than the characteristic thermal energy. Nanoparticles in high-excited bound states form two-dimensional gas of objects quasi-freely traveling along surface. A particularly interesting prediction is small-energy-transfer scattering of UCN on solid/ liquid surfaces covered by such levitating nanoparticles/ nano-droplets. The change in UCN energy is due to the Doppler shift induced by UCN collisions with nanoparticles; the energy change is about as small as the UCN initial energy. We compare theoretical estimations of our model to all relevant existing data and state that they agree quite well. As our theoretical formalism provides robust predictions and the experimental data are rather precise, we conclude that the recently discovered intriguing phenomenon of small heating of UCN in traps is due to their collisions with such levitating nanoparticles. Moreover, this new phenomenon might be relevant to the striking contradiction between results of the neutron lifetime measurements with smallest reported uncertainties as it might cause major false effects in these experiments; thus it affects fundamental conclusions concerning precision checks of unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix, cosmology, astrophysics. Dedicated measurements of UCN up-scattering on specially prepared surfaces and nanoparticles levitating above them might provide a unique method to study surface potentials.



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Analyzing new experiments with ultracold neutrons (UCNs) we show that physical adsorption of nanoparticles/nano-droplets, levitating in high-excited states in a deep and broad potential well formed by van der Waals/Casimir-Polder (vdW/CP) forces resu lts in new effects on a cross-road of fundamental interactions, neutron, surface and nanoparticle physics. Accounting for the interaction of UCNs with nanoparticles explains a recently discovered intriguing small heating of UCNs in traps. It might be relevant to the striking conflict of the neutron lifetime experiments with smallest reported uncertainties by adding false effects there.
91 - V.V.Nesvizhevsky 2005
Two hypothesizes concerning interaction of neutrons with nanoparticles and having applications in the physics of ultracold neutron (UCN) were recently considered in ref. [Physics of Atomic Nuclei 65(3): 400 (2002)]; they were motivated by the experim ental observation of small changes in energy of UCN upon their collisions with surface. The first hypothesis explaines the nature of the observed phenomenon by inelastic coherent scattering of UCN on nanoparticles weakly attached at surface, in a state of permanent thermal motion. It got experimental confirmed in ref. [Physics of Atomic Nuclei 65(11): 1996 (2002)]. The second hypothesis inverts the problem of neutron interaction with nanoparticles in the following sence. In all experiments with UCN, the trap-wall temperature was much higher than a temperature of about 1 mK, which corresponds to the UCN energy. Therefore, UCN preferentially increased their energy. The surface density of weakly attached nanoparticles was low. If, however, the nanoparticles temperature is lower than the neutron temperature and if the nanoparticles density is high, the problem of interaction of neutrons with nanoparticles is inverted. In this case, the neutrons can cool down, under certain conditions, owing tot heir scattering on ultracold-heavy-water, deuterium, and oxigen nanoparticles to their temperature of about 1 mK, with result that the UCN density increases by many orders of magnitude. In the present article we repeat the argumentation given in the first mentioned article and formulate in a very general way the research program in order to verify validity of this hypothesis. Both the theoretical and the experimental investigation of the problem are going to intensify in the near future.
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