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Rydberg Polarons Reportedly Created

posted by mrpg on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the exotic-matter dept.

takyon writes:

Scientists have reported the creation of "Rydberg polarons":

What is inside an atom, between the nucleus and the electron? Usually there is nothing, but why could there not be other particles too? If the electron orbits the nucleus at a great distance, there is plenty of space in between for other atoms. A "giant atom" can be created, filled with ordinary atoms. All these atoms form a weak bond, creating a new, exotic state of matter at cold temperatures, referred to as "Rydberg polarons".

A team of researchers has now presented this state of matter in the journal "Physical Review Letters". The theoretical work was done at TU Wien (Vienna) and Harvard University, the experiment was performed at Rice University in Houston (Texas).

Two very special fields of atomic physics, which can only be studied at extreme conditions, have been combined in this research project: Bose-Einstein condensates and Rydberg atoms. A Bose-Einstein condensate is a state of matter created by atoms at ultracold temperatures, close to absolute zero. Rydberg atoms are atoms, in which one single electron is lifted into a highly excited state and orbits the nucleus at a very large distance.

[...] First, a Bose-Einstein condensate was created with strontium atoms. Using a laser, energy was transferred to one of these atoms, turning it into a Rydberg atom with a huge atomic radius. The perplexing thing about this atom: the radius of the orbit, on which the electron moves around the nucleus, is much larger than the typical distance between two atoms in the condensate. Therefore the electron does not only orbit its own atomic nucleus, numerous other atoms lie inside its orbit too. Depending on the radius of the Rydberg atom and the density of the Bose-Einstein condensate, as many as 170 additional strontium atoms may be enclosed by the huge electronic orbit.

Creation of Rydberg Polarons in a Bose Gas (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.083401) (DX)

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 27 2018, @09:32AM (7 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday February 27 2018, @09:32AM (#644543) Homepage
    Is patently false, contradicting the last 92 years of quantum electrodynamics. Electron "orbits" are not like planetary orbits, there is no gap - the density of 1s is highest at the centre, for pity's sake.
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:12AM (6 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:12AM (#644561) Journal

    the density of 1s is highest at the centre, for pity's sake.

    Phil! Phil!! Stop playing silly, you risk sliding into becoming one.
    Check the radial distribution for the s orbitals [utexas.edu], they all have a value of zero in origin.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:04AM (5 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:04AM (#645029) Homepage
      Just plain wrong. In order to get that graph to 0 at 0, you had to multiply by 0 *twice* - the axis represents 4.pi.r^2.Psi^2
      The *density* is proportional to Psi^2. And note how I *explicitly* said "density".
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      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:54AM (4 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @08:54AM (#645045) Journal

        Just plain wrong. In order to get that graph to 0 at 0, you had to multiply by 0 *twice* - the axis represents 4.pi.r^2.Psi^2

        Mmmm... I see... Strange, indeed.

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        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:28AM (3 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:28AM (#645052) Homepage
          There's way more space at ~53pm radius than there is at ~1pm. It's more likely to be at ~53pm radius than ~1pm radius, but that's simply because the net you're casting is ~2800 times larger. For the peaks in the 2s, 3s, etc, orbitals, that scaling factor will be even larger. Of course, most electrons aren't in s orbitals, and the other orbitals have nodes (vanishing probability) rather than antinodes (highest probability) at the centre. But again, I was careful to explicitly name an s orbital.
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          • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:40AM (2 children)

            by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday February 28 2018, @09:40AM (#645059) Homepage
            non-s orbitals make the "orbitting the nucleus" claim even *more* absurd, as they have *lobes* that are isolated by low-probability regions.

            Raindrops aren't raindrop shaped (they flatten, rather than getting extended). Electrons don't orbit the nucleus. It's time to chose better words when teaching science. I think it's time to start teaching wave-particle duality earlier, and de-epmhasising the "particle" part as soon as possible. Everything's a wave. Billiard balls are too wrong.
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            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:21AM (1 child)

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 28 2018, @11:21AM (#645089) Journal

              non-s orbitals make the "orbitting the nucleus" claim even *more* absurd, as they have *lobes* that are isolated by low-probability regions.

              Let's make it even more strange - a density of probability of zero in a "separating" region doesn't mean the electron cannot "travel" between the two separated areas - tunnelling effects and all that.

              It's like the impulse iof the particle n those separating region will need to be high (theoretically infinite), with a "classical interpretation" of "the electron travels so fast there, the probability of finding it at any given time in any infinitesimal volume of the separation region vanishes" (one will need to sprinkle the ergodic hypothesis for this interpretation)

              Everything's a wave. Billiard balls are too wrong.

              Hmmm... I wonder.
              Doesn't seem that the pilot-wave theory [wikipedia.org] is totally refuted, it just competes on scientific mind-share with the orthodoxy of the Copenhagen interpretation.
              If zero-point field is accepted as a working hypothesis for the Hawking radiation (those vacuum fluctuations), why wouldn't the same work for "the surface of water on which the oil droplets/ping-pong balls interact with the waves created by their own bouncing on that surface" [wikipedia.org]?
              Like the electron causing a wave on the zero-point field deformed by the nucleus and then "catching" that wave on its motion only to be "reflected" back "around" the nucleus of the atom.

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              • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:22PM

                by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:22PM (#645225) Homepage
                I believe that my level of understanding of Hawking radiation, the popular one expressed in terms of separated virtual particle pairs causing energy loss to the BH is about as wrong as billiard balls, so I shall refrain from comment. I'm hoping to learn more about the subject by avidly watching the relevant (and all other) episodes from PBS's Spacetime: <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g/videos?disable_polymer=1> , as we have been promised a more correct explanation of Hawking radiation eventually.
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