The idea of the matter-wave dualism is very old. Actually De Broglie himself was strong supporter of non-zero mass of photon, what means that from his point of view, not only all the mass particles have a wave associated with them (De Broglie wave), but all the waves (photons) have something with mass associated with them (see, for example [1]). I am trying to infer some new ideas from the following hypothesis: any matter is simultaneously particle and wave. How to describe it mathematically is a difficult problem and probably such mathematical formalism does not exist yet. However, some interesting ideas may be inferred from the mere fact of such duality. The most obvious is the mass of photon - it should have a mass, despite it is clear that it is very, enormously small. However, this fact will instantly explain the quantization of the light absorption - the light is quantized because it is countable very much like any other particle.
The easiest phenomenon which would be possible to predict has already an analog in nuclear physics. This is Ramsauer Model for cross-sections of different events (like nuclear fission) [2]. According to this result, the smaller the energy of neutron, the better his chances to start fission, what is consistent with the quantum mechanics idea of De Broglie wave around the neutron. A similar contrary to usual sense behavior is observed in Ramsauer-Townsend effect - at certain low energy of electron the gas in the chamber becomes transparent (the De Broglie wavelength is around the mean free path for electrons). For future use the ultracold neutrons with De Broglie wavelength of 10 A are supposed to be generated in new sources [3]. So the idea of finding a phenomena, reciprocal to phenomena well known for light but being applied to matter wave considered as the main part of the wave-matter particle is appealing.
Some research groups are already observing for matter waves the phenomena, exactly like those previously described for light. For example, the rotation of particle beams in space without external fields was described in [4]. Authors correctly described the behavior as impossible from classical point of view for electrons (particles), easily observed for photons (wave) and now observed for electrons but created by the De Broglie part of electrons (wave part of the matter). This phenomena confirms the reciprocity idea: the phenomenon exists for pure waves (photons), thus it must exist for matter waves (in the case the wave part of the particle is essential, as for the case of ultra slow electrons [4])
The unusual example of the appearance of the wave properties of the particles (electron) would be
observation of the cathodoluminescence in some compounds for extremely low energies of electrons (1-3 eV). Usually the cathodoluminescence is easily observed and important phenomenon for energies of few kV. At this region the electron is working essentially as a particle only and simply creating excitation through hit of particle. But for usual light the luminescence is easily observed for energies of few eV - because they are waves. Even despite charge interactions, if the electron is working as a wave (reciprocity principle), the resonances may be predicted for very low energy electrons in the range 1-3 eV. The idea is that electron in this region has the essential wave admixture. Despite the De Broglie wavelength is still much smaller compare to light with this energy, it may be enough to be absorbed as a wave, not interact as a particle. In this situation the sharp in energy resonance is expected for the electron created luminescence due to the interaction of electron as wave, not as a particle.
References.
1. https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/0107122.pdf
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_cross_section
3. https://physicsworld.com/a/neutrons-for-the-future/
4. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/ab152d/pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment