Re: Repulsion binds atoms

Sam Wormley wrote:

Repulsion binds atoms (Jun 15)
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/10/6/8

Physicists in Austria have created a new type of stable bound state made
from two atoms that repel each other. This counterintuitive result âEUR"
normally we think that two objects need to attract each other to stick
together âEUR" was obtained by a team led by Johannes Hecker Denschlag
and Andrew Daley at the University of Innsbruck by trapping ultracold
rubidium atoms in an optical lattice. The work could have implications
for making quantum computers and to study bound states on a fundamental
level. The experiment also shows how optical lattices can be used to
investigate many-body phenomena that are hard to observe in other
systems (Nature 441 853).

Something bothers me. Your reference includes the following:

"According to the team, the bound configuration is stable because the
total energy of the atoms is smaller when they are close together than
when they are separate."

That certainly sounds like the signature of an attractive force to me:
as the two atoms separate, the energy of the system increases. Perhaps
what they mean to say is that, considered in vacuum, the potential of
the two atoms would produce a repulsive interaction, whereas in their
"optical lattice", the overall potential of the system leads to an
attractive interaction at the separation considered. Cute, but
deceptively advertised.

Another one bites the dust.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Repulsion binds atoms
    ... Physicists in Austria have created a new type of stable bound state made ... from two atoms that repel each other. ... as the two atoms separate, the energy of the system increases. ... electric field vector by that definition. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Repulsion binds atoms
    ... Physicists in Austria have created a new type of stable bound state made ... from two atoms that repel each other. ... bonds of particles:or any attraction force ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Repulsion binds atoms
    ... Physicists in Austria have created a new type of stable bound state made ... from two atoms that repel each other. ... rubidium atoms in an optical lattice. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Atoms exist inside Spacetime..
    ... Products inside of atoms have motion, ... I can reduce an Orange down to its component Atoms, ... Atom down to its componant Quarks. ... But what I cannot do is Separate a ...
    (sci.physics.particle)
  • Re: the equivalent of five covalent bonds
    ... to separate (isolate) just two atoms of the examoned element?? ...
    (sci.physics)
Loading