Low-energy scattering of ultracold atoms by a dielectric nanosphere
arXiv:2106.10418 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.043214
Abstract
We theoretically study the low-energy scattering of ultracold atoms by a dielectric nanosphere of silica glass levitated in a vacuum. The atom and dielectric surface interact via dispersion force of which strength sensitively depends on the polarizability, dielectric function, and geometry. For cesium and rubidium atoms, respectively, we compute the atom-surface interaction strength, and characterize the stationary scattering states by taking adsorption of the atoms onto the surface into account. As the energy of the incoming atoms is lowered, we find that differences between quantum and classical scatterings emerge in two steps. First, the quantum-mechanical differential cross section of the elastic scattering starts to deviate from the classical one at an energy scale comparable to a few microkelvin in units of temperature due to the de Broglie matter-wave diffraction. Second, the differences are found in the cross sections in a regime lower than a few nanokelvin, where the classically forbidden reflection occurs associated with the -wave scattering, and the discrete nature of angular momentum. We also study the dependencies of quantum and classical scattering properties on the radius of the nanosphere. This paper paves the way to identify the quantum regime and to understand the physical origin of quantum effects in the collisions between a nanoparticle and environmental gas over various temperatures.
arXiv comment15 pages, 12 figures
References in corpus (31)
- Cavity optomechanics using an optically levitated nanosphere
- Large Quantum Superpositions and Interference of Massive Nanometer-Sized Objects
- Real-time optimal quantum control of mechanical motion at room temperature
- High-precision calculations of dispersion coefficients, static dipole polarizabilities, and atom-wall interaction constants for alkali-metal atoms
- Direct Measurement of Photon Recoil from a Levitated Nanoparticle
- Quantum control of a nanoparticle optically levitated in cryogenic free space
- GHz Rotation of an Optically Trapped Nanoparticle in Vacuum
- Cavity cooling of an optically levitated nanoparticle
- Detecting high-frequency gravitational waves with optically-levitated sensors
- Short-range force detection using optically-cooled levitated microspheres
- Nanoscale temperature measurements using non-equilibrium Brownian dynamics of a levitated nanosphere
- Quantum reflection of atoms from a solid surface at normal incidence
- Near-field interferometry of a free-falling nanoparticle from a point-like source
- Universal rate constants for reactive collisions of ultracold molecules
- Experimental Observation of Quantum Reflection in the High Energy Limit
- Low velocity quantum reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates
- High precision measurement of the static dipole polarizability of cesium
- Universal rates for reactive ultracold polar molecules in reduced dimensions
- Universal ultracold collision rates for polar molecules of two alkali-metal atoms
- Precession Motion in Levitated Optomechanics
- Nonlinear mode-coupling and synchronization of a vacuum-trapped nanoparticle
- Long-range interactions of lithium atoms
- Quantum theory of reactive collisions for 1/r^n potentials
- Recoil-limited feedback cooling of single nanoparticles near the ground state in an optical lattice
- Giant Quantum Reflection of Neon Atoms from a Ridged Silicon Surface
- Heating in Nanophotonic Traps for Cold Atoms
- Rotational cavity optomechanics
- Coupling librational and translational motion of a levitated nanoparticle in an optical cavity
- Creating atom-nanoparticle quantum superpositions
- Scattering and absorption of ultracold atoms by nanotubes
- Bound states of a short-range potential with inverse cube singularity