Observation of the Efimov state of the helium trimer

被引：196

作者：

Kunitski, Maksim ^{[1
]}

Zeller, Stefan ^{[1
]}

Voigtsberger, Joerg ^{[1
]}

Kalinin, Anton ^{[1
]}

Schmidt, Lothar Ph H. ^{[1
]}

Schoeffler, Markus ^{[1
]}

Czasch, Achim ^{[1
]}

Schoellkopf, Wieland ^{[2
]}

Grisenti, Robert E. ^{[1
,3
]}

Jahnke, Till ^{[1
]}

Blume, Doerte ^{[4
]}

Doerner, Reinhard ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Goethe Univ Frankfurt, Inst Kernphys, D-60438 Frankfurt, Germany

[2] Fritz Haber Inst, Dept Mol Phys, D-14195 Berlin, Germany

[3] GSI Helmholtz Ctr Heavy Ion Res, D-64291 Darmstadt, Germany

[4] Washington State Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Pullman, WA 99164 USA

来源：

SCIENCE | 2015年 / 348卷 / 6234期

基金：

美国国家科学基金会;

关键词：

SELECTION;

D O I：

10.1126/science.aaa5601

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

Quantum theory dictates that upon weakening the two-body interaction in a three-body system, an infinite number of three-body bound states of a huge spatial extent emerge just before these three-body states become unbound. Three helium (He) atoms have been predicted to form a molecular system that manifests this peculiarity under natural conditions without artificial tuning of the attraction between particles by an external field. Here we report experimental observation of this long-predicted but experimentally elusive Efimov state of He-4(3) by means of Coulomb explosion imaging. We show spatial images of an Efimov state, confirming the predicted size and a typical structure where two atoms are close to each other while the third is far away.

引用

页码：551 / 555

页数：5

共 29 条

[1] Effective theory of the triton [J].