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Classic Double-Slit Experiment in a New Light

posted by takyon on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:20PM   
from the particle-x dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An international research team led by physicists from Collaborative Research Centre 1238, 'Control and Dynamics of Quantum Materials' at the University of Cologne has implemented a new variant of the basic double-slit experiment using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering at the European Synchrotron ESRF in Grenoble. This new variant offers a deeper understanding of the electronic structure of solids. Writing in Science Advances, the research group have now presented their results under the title 'Resonant inelastic x-ray incarnation of Young's double-slit experiment'.

The double-slit experiment is of fundamental importance in physics. More than 200 years ago, Thomas Young diffracted light at two adjacent slits, thus generating interference patterns (images based on superposition) behind this double slit. That way, he demonstrated the wave character of light. In the 20th century, scientists have shown that electrons or molecules scattered on a double slit show the same interference pattern, which contradicts the classical expectation of particle behaviour, but can be explained in quantum-mechanical wave-particle dualism. In contrast, the researchers in Cologne investigated an iridium oxide crystal (Ba3CeIr2O9) by means of resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS).

The crystal is irradiated with strongly collimated, high-energy X-ray photons. The X-rays are scattered by the iridium atoms in the crystal, which take over the role of the slits in Young's classical experiment. Due to the rapid technical development of RIXS and a skilful choice of crystal structure, the physicists were now able to observe the scattering on two adjacent iridium atoms, a so-called dimer.

'The interference pattern tells us a lot about the scattering object, the dimer double slit', says Professor Markus Grueninger, who heads the research group at the University of Cologne. In contrast to the classical double-slit experiment, the inelastically scattered X-ray photons provide information about the excited states of the dimer, in particular their symmetry, and thus about the dynamic physical properties of the solid.

Resonant inelastic x-ray incarnation of Young’s double-slit experiment (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aav4020) (DX)

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Original Submission

• Re:They tell us that there ARE differences (Score: 4, Informative) by EvilSS on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:14PM

  by EvilSS (1456) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:14PM (#790179)

  OK so I suck as explaining this type of stuff, but maybe I can at least boil it down a bit. Basically, this paper proves out a theory about RIXS being can, with materials with specific crystal structures, allow the researchers to better understand the electronic structure of the material. Hopefully everyone remembers their high school chemistry lessons on ground and excited electron states? What this allows them to do is observe specifics about the possible excited states of certain atoms in the solid, and give a better overall understanding of the material's properties. This, in turn, will give them a tool to study specific phenomenon within those materials (see the last sentence).

  Here, we report on an inelastic incarnation of Young’s experiment and demonstrate that resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) measures interference patterns, which reveal the symmetry and character of electronic excited states in the same way as elastic scattering does for the ground state. ...

  The clear double-slit-type sinusoidal interference patterns that we observe allow us to characterize the electronic excitations, demonstrating the power of RIXS interferometry to unravel the electronic structure of solids containing, e.g., dimers, trimers, ladders, or other superstructures....

  These results demonstrate the potential of this interference method to probe the electronic structure of materials containing well-defined structural units such as dimers, trimers, or heptamers (21), as well as structures in which the carriers are “localized” only in one direction, e.g., bilayers or ladders. More specifically, our results suggest that RIXS interferometry is ideally suited to explore the role of molecular orbitals in the spin-liquid candidate Ba3InIr2O9 with In3+ ions and three holes per dimer (22), as well as to search for Majorana fermions in iridate candidates for a Kitaev spin liquid (9). The latter quantum state lives on tricoordinated lattices; still, spin correlations are restricted to nearest neighbors. Majorana fermion excitations are thus expected to show an interference pattern that is closely related to the case of dimers in BCIO. In general, RIXS interferometry will prove to be an efficient tool for studying the symmetry and character of excited states in complex materials.

  Also they should be required to put trigger warning on papers contain Hamiltonian equations. I'm going to be having flashbacks to my NMR theory class for weeks now.

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
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  Interesting=1, Informative=1, Total=2
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  Total Score:		4