Abstract
Understanding the behavior of molecules interacting with superfluid helium represents a formidable challenge and, in general, requires approaches relying on large-scale numerical simulations. Here, we demonstrate that experimental data collected over the last 20 years provide evidence that molecules immersed in superfluid helium form recently predicted angulon quasiparticles [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 203001 (2015)]. Most important, casting the many-body problem in terms of angulons amounts to a drastic simplification and yields effective molecular moments of inertia as straightforward analytic solutions of a simple microscopic Hamiltonian. The outcome of the angulon theory is in good agreement with experiment for a broad range of molecular impurities, from heavy to medium-mass to light species. These results pave the way to understanding molecular rotation in liquid and crystalline phases in terms of the angulon quasiparticle.
- Received 13 October 2016
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.095301
© 2017 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Viewpoint
A New Angle on Quantum Impurities
Published 27 February 2017
Quasiparticles called angulons can simplify the theoretical description of a molecule immersed in a quantum solvent.
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