The structure and energetics of ${}^3$He and ${}^4$He nanodroplets doped with alkaline earth atoms

Abstract

We present systematic results, based on density functional calculations, for the structure and energetics of ${}^3$He and ${}^4$He nanodroplets doped with alkaline earth atoms. We predict that alkaline earth atoms from Mg to Ba go to the center of ${}^3$He drops, whereas Ca, Sr, and Ba reside in a deep dimple at the surface of ${}^4$He drops, and Mg is at their center. For Ca and Sr, the structure of the dimples is shown to be very sensitive to the He-alkaline earth pair potentials used in the calculations. The $5s5p\leftarrow 5s^2$ transition of strontium atoms attached to helium nanodroplets of either isotope has been probed in absorption experiments. The spectra show that strontium is solvated inside ${}^3$He nanodroplets, supporting the calculations. In the light of our findings, we emphasize the relevance of the heavier alkaline earth atoms for analyzing mixed ${}^3$He-${}^4$He nanodroplets, and in particular, we suggest their use to experimentally probe the ${}^3$He-${}^4$He interface.

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References in corpus (8)

• Spectroscopy and dynamics in helium nanodroplets
• Helium nanodroplet isolation ro-vibrational spectroscopy: methods and recent results
• Surface location of sodium atoms attached to He-3 nanodroplets
• Probing vortices in 4He nanodroplets
• A vertical diatomic artificial molecule in the intermediate coupling regime in a parallel and perpendicular magnetic field
• Alkali Atoms Attached to ${}^3$He Nanodroplets
• Quantized vortices in mixed 3He-4He drops
• The spectra of mixed ${}^3$He-${}^4$He droplets

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• Mg impurity in helium droplets
• Efficiency of Dopant-Induced Ignition of Helium Nanoplasmas
• Diagrammatic Monte Carlo approach to angular momentum in quantum many-particle systems
• Vortex arrays in a rotating superfluid He-4 nanocylinder
• Diagrammatic approach to orbital quantum impurities interacting with a many-particle environment
• Charging dynamics of dopants in helium nanoplasmas
• Ca impurity in small mixed ${}^4$He-${}^3$He clusters
• Photoinduced molecule formation of spatially separated atoms on helium nanodroplets
• Dopant-induced ignition of helium nanoplasmas -- a mechanistic study