Superradiance occurs when an atomic nucleus reaches a high excitation energy.
Nuclear physicists refer to atomic nuclei as quantum many-body systems because they are formed by many particles that interact with each other in complex ways.
Nuclei can absorb energy, placing them into excited states. These states then lose energy through decay and may emit different particles.
The various processes of decay and particle emission are called decay channels.
The interplay between the internal characteristics of the excited states and the different decay channels gives rise to interesting phenomena.
One of these phenomena is superradiance, which occurs when a nucleus reaches a high excitation energy.
“Resonances in unstable quantum systems are radiating states that despite decaying overall normalization have a well-defined structure which is being balanced by outgoing radiation,” said Dr. Alexander Volya, a physicist with the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University and Florida State University, and his colleagues.
“Such an interplay between outgoing wave and internal quantum many-body dynamics leads to several unique effects.”
“One of those is known as superradiance, or alignment, where due to decay or virtual coupling to the continuum the states undergo restructuring so that their wave functions align towards the decay channels thus facilitating the decay.”
“This effect is well understood theoretically and is closely related to the fundamental properties of reaction physics.”
“Direct observation of superradiance in open quantum many-body systems is difficult because it is hard to find identical complex quantum systems that are different only in their coupling to the continuum of reaction states describing the decay.”
To find evidence of superradiance in nuclei, nuclear physicists look for two systems that have the same internal structure but different decay channels.
Mirror nuclei have the same total number of protons and neutrons, but the…
Read the full article here