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Matter-Wave Tractor Beams

Alexey A. Gorlach, Maxim A. Gorlach, Andrei V. Lavrinenko, and Andrey Novitsky
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 180401 – Published 4 May 2017
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Abstract

Optical and acoustic tractor beams are currently the focus of intense research due to their counterintuitive property of exerting a pulling force on small scattering objects. In this Letter we propose a matter-wave tractor beam and utilize the de Broglie waves of nonrelativistic matter particles in analogy to “classical” tractor beams. We reveal the presence of the quantum-mechanical pulling force for the variety of quantum mechanical potentials observing the resonant enhancement of the pulling effect under the conditions of the suppressed scattering known as the Ramsauer-Townsend effect. We also derive the sufficient conditions on the scattering potential for the emergence of the pulling force and show that, in particular, a Coulomb scatterer is always shoved, while a Yukawa (screened Coulomb) scatterer can be drawn. Pulling forces in optics, acoustics, quantum mechanics, and classical mechanics are compared, and the matter-wave pulling force is found to have exclusive properties of dragging slow particles in short-range potentials. We envisage that the use of tractor beams could lead to the unprecedented precision in manipulation with atomic-scale quantum objects.

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  • Received 9 January 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.180401

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

General Physics

Synopsis

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A Tractor Beam from Matter Waves

Published 4 May 2017

Theory shows that the quantum-mechanical wave of a beam of particles can exert a pulling force on a small particle, just as other waves do.

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Authors & Affiliations

Alexey A. Gorlach1, Maxim A. Gorlach2, Andrei V. Lavrinenko3, and Andrey Novitsky1,3,*

  • 1Belarusian State University, 220030 Minsk, Belarus
  • 2ITMO University, 197101 St. Petersburg, Russia
  • 3Technical University of Denmark, DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

  • *Corresponding author. anov@fotonik.dtu.dk

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 18 — 5 May 2017

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