Can Neutron Beams Reveal Decoherence in C60 Buckyballs?

[kurious]

http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/res...matterwave/c60/


This weblink is about C60 buckyballs passing through a diffraction grating and showing wave-like behaviour.Since the buckyballs are moving quite slowly -
about 210 m/s would it be possible to fire a neutron beam through the buckyballs at right angles to their direction of travel and to get a neutron diffraction pattern of the buckyballs before and after they have passed through the grating,to see how they change.Such a procedure could yield information about how decoherence occurs.

 

[kurious]

Suppose a cloud of 60 unbonded carbon atoms are fired simulataneously at the slits and the cloud has photons trapped in it corresponding to the energy a "hot" buckyball would radiate.We would expect an interference pattern to form
because the photons ,if detected, cannot tell us which individual carbon atom traveled through which slit.My point is this:
Decoherence probably doesn't happen for a "hot" buckyball because
it must be behaving like the cloud of unbonded carbon atoms - we have no way of knowing which carbon atoms in the ball radiate an individual photon. And if a radioactive carbon 14 atom was introduced into each buckyball we could in principle by using a detector at one of the slits find out which atom emitted an alpha particle and we would expect the interference pattern to disappear altogether.

 

[R0man]

Decoherence is a phenomenon where a quantum system, such as a particle, interacts with its environment and loses its quantum properties, becoming more classical in nature. In the case of C60 buckyballs passing through a diffraction grating, the environment is the air molecules and the grating itself. As the buckyballs interact with these particles, their quantum properties may be affected and they may behave more like classical particles.

Carbon-60, or C60, is a molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in the shape of a soccer ball. It is a popular subject in quantum physics research due to its unique properties. In this experiment, the researchers were interested in observing the wave-like behavior of the buckyballs as they passed through the diffraction grating. This can provide insight into the quantum nature of the buckyballs and how they interact with their environment.

The idea of using a neutron beam to study the buckyballs is an interesting one. Neutrons are neutral particles and can easily pass through matter without being affected. By firing a neutron beam at the buckyballs at right angles to their direction of travel, it would be possible to observe their diffraction pattern before and after passing through the grating. This can provide valuable information about how the buckyballs change and interact with their environment.

Such a procedure could also shed light on the process of decoherence. By studying the neutron diffraction pattern of the buckyballs, researchers can see how their quantum properties may be affected by interacting with the environment. This can help us understand how decoherence occurs and how it affects the behavior of quantum systems.

In summary, the study of C60 buckyballs passing through a diffraction grating is an interesting and important area of research in quantum physics. By using techniques such as neutron diffraction, we can gain a better understanding of the quantum nature of these particles and how they behave in the presence of their environment. This can provide valuable insights into the phenomenon of decoherence and its effects on quantum systems.