Neutron whispering gallery

The 'whispering gallery' effect has been known since ancient times for sound waves in air, later in water and more recently for a broad range of electromagnetic waves: radio, optics, Roentgen and so on. It consists of wave localization near a curved reflecting surface and is expected for w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature physics 2010-02, Vol.6 (2), p.114-117
Main Authors: Nesvizhevsky, Valery V, Voronin, Alexei Yu, Cubitt, Robert, Protasov, Konstantin V
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atomic
Classical and Continuum Physics
Complex Systems
Condensed Matter Physics
Electromagnetic radiation
letter
Mathematical and Computational Physics
Molecular
Neutrons
Nuclear Theory
Optical and Plasma Physics
Optics
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Quantum theory
Sound waves
Theoretical
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Summary:The 'whispering gallery' effect has been known since ancient times for sound waves in air, later in water and more recently for a broad range of electromagnetic waves: radio, optics, Roentgen and so on. It consists of wave localization near a curved reflecting surface and is expected for waves of various natures, for instance, for atoms and neutrons. For matter waves, it would include a new feature: a massive particle would be settled in quantum states, with parameters depending on its mass. Here, we present for the first time the quantum whispering-gallery effect for cold neutrons. This phenomenon provides an example of an exactly solvable problem analogous to the 'quantum bouncer'; it is complementary to the recently discovered gravitationally bound quantum states of neutrons . These two phenomena provide a direct demonstration of the weak equivalence principle for a massive particle in a pure quantum state. Deeply bound whispering-gallery states are long-living and weakly sensitive to surface potential; highly excited states are short-living and very sensitive to the wall potential shape. Therefore, they are a promising tool for studying fundamental neutron-matter interactions, quantum neutron optics and surface physics effects.
ISSN:1745-2473
1745-2481
1476-4636
DOI:10.1038/nphys1478