Circuit Response to Gamma Rays

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter cosmicjello
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Circuit Response
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
1 reply · 3K views
cosmicjello
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Hello.

Gamma rays are about same wavelength as the diameter of an atomic nucleus. If one was to design a circuit that was resonant at a frequency near that range (say 300,000,000,000,000 MHz), the resonant frequency would not be far from an electron wavelength, so the impedance phase and amplitude (perhaps like the position and momentum of the electron, because the phase gives the velocity (or derivative) of a sine wave if one knows the starting amplitude) cannot both be found at the same time. If one wanted to compute the transient response for a single square pulse, would one need a probability distribution? That is, is it related to a solution of the wave equation?

Perhaps it could be measured with a circuit that was even faster (the sampling theorem), but then the testing circuit would also be subject to the same problem in the design phase, and the testing circuit of that one, etc.

To be honest, I’m not even sure this question makes sense, yet there seems to be such a relationship between standing waves of a very fast circuit and the standing waves of electron shells - there might be some frequency at which quantum mechanics comes into play.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
cosmicjello said:
Hello.

Gamma rays are about same wavelength as the diameter of an atomic nucleus. If one was to design a circuit that was resonant at a frequency near that range (say 300,000,000,000,000 MHz), the resonant frequency would not be far from an electron wavelength, so the impedance phase and amplitude (perhaps like the position and momentum of the electron, because the phase gives the velocity (or derivative) of a sine wave if one knows the starting amplitude) cannot both be found at the same time. If one wanted to compute the transient response for a single square pulse, would one need a probability distribution? That is, is it related to a solution of the wave equation?

Technically this would always be true for any circuit. One can't measure position and velocity simultaneously, as would be necessary for current, for each electron. However, the uncertainty involved is small relative to important quantities. When dealing with O(10^23) electrons, small variations will tend to cancel out.

cosmicjello said:
Perhaps it could be measured with a circuit that was even faster (the sampling theorem), but then the testing circuit would also be subject to the same problem in the design phase, and the testing circuit of that one, etc.

The HUP is theoretical, sampling theorem won't help you.

I think the HUP would only be a problem dealing with extremely low current situations, say 20 electrons in a ring of O(10^-10) meters.