Observation of the Efimov state of the helium trimer

Quantum theory dictates that upon weakening the two-body interaction in a three-body system, an infinite number of three-body bound states of a huge spatial extent emerge just before these three-body states become unbound. Three helium atoms have been predicted to form a molecular system that manifests this peculiarity under natural conditions without artificial tuning of the attraction between particles by an external field. Here we report experimental observation of this long predicted but experimentally elusive Efimov state of $^{4}$He$_{3}$ by means of Coulomb explosion imaging. We show spatial images of an Efimov state, confirming the predicted size and a typical structure where two atoms are close to each other while the third is far away

Tiefkalte Helium-Moleküle

Wie alle Edelgase hat Helium eine vollständig gefüllte Valenzelektronenschale und kann entsprechend keine kovalente Bindung eingehen. Unter extrem kalten Bedingungen genügt jedoch die äußerst schwache Van-der-Waals-Wechselwirkung, um mehrere Heliumatome aneinander zu binden. Einer Gruppe von Atomphysikern der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt ist es gelungen, diese Verbindungen herzustellen und zu vermessen [1]

Double-slit photoelectron interference in strong-field ionization of the neon dimer

The wave nature of light and particles is of interest to the fundamental quantum mechanics. Here the authors show the double-slit interference effect in the strong-field ionization of neon dimers by employing COLTRIMS method to record the momentum distribution of the photoelectrons in the molecular fram

Detecting ultrafast interatomic electronic processes in media by fluorescence

Gefördert durch den Publikationsfonds der Universität Kasse