Positron scattering by the noble gases

We report cross sections for positron collisions with the noble gases He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe. These cross sections are for Ps(1s) formation and elastic scattering, and are calculated in the (truncated) coupled-static approximation. Comparison is made with experiments which measure formation of positronium into all bound states. At their maxima, the theoretical and experimental cross sections are of comparable size but, at higher energies, the theoretical numbers are often much lower than the experimental values, a discrepancy which is difficult to understand. Some very interesting structure is observed in the theoretical cross sections, but the calculations do not show the structure at high energies seen in the experiments. The importance of calculating positronium formation not only by electron capture from the outermost shell of the atom but also from inner shells is highlighted. It is suggested that a sufficiently refined experiment may be able to see shell effects. Structure in the elastic cross section which correlates with behaviour in the positronium channel is pointed out. For He, the effects of polarization and absorption in the elastic and Ps(1s) formation channels is also studied using secondorder optical potentials. Polarization and absorption are found to be very important for this system.     

Sputtering of condensed noble gases by keV ions

Layers of Kr and Xe condensed at ～ 15 K and 35 K have been bombarded by 3-6 keV Ar+, Kr+ and Xe+ ions.

The sputtered neutrals were detected after a 1.43 m flight path by means of a mass spectrometer. Among the sputtered particles are considerable numbers of Van der Waals molecules, like Kr₂, Kr₃, Xe₂ XeKr and XeKr₂. The energy distribution of the sputtered particles give clues to the sputtering mechanisms involved.     

Photon echo relaxation in caesium perturbed by noble gases

The collisional relaxation of photon echoes generated on the $\text{6S}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>built1</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}\text{- 7P}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>built3</mtext><mtext>2</mtext>}}$ (455 nm) transition in caesium has been observed and measured as a function of perturber pressure. Values for the collision cross-sections have been obtained using helium, neon, argon and krypton as perturbers. There is good agreement between these results and those obtained from high resolution measurements of pressure-broadened line profiles. The echoes were observed using the polarization rotation technique and all the measurements were made at perturber pressures below 0.5 torr.     

Heats of displacement of hydrogen from palladium by noble gases

It has been observed that noble gases, such as helium, neon and argon produce heat evolution when contacted with Pd powder partially saturated with hydrogen. These phenomena have been studied with flow-through adsorption microcalorimetry. The observed exothermic effects are comparable to those usually associated with the heat of sorption of hydrogen in palladium. It is suggested that the noble gases displace the adsorbed H species from the surface of Pd, causing their reabsorption in the Pd lattice with the exothermic heat of PdH bonds formation, or the formation of H₂, both heat evolutions being observed with a flow-through microcalorimeter.     

X-ray transitions from antiprotonic noble gases

The onset of antiprotonic X-ray transitions at high principal quantum numbers and the occurrence of electronic X-rays in antiprotonic argon, krypton, and xenon has been analyzed with the help of Multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock calculations. The shell-by-shell ionisation by Auger electron emission, characterised by appearance and disappearance of X-ray lines, is followed through the antiprotonic cascade by considering transition and binding energies of both the antiproton and the remaining electrons. Electronic lines could be attributed partly to specific states of the antiprotonic atom de-excitation.     

Novel MRI applications of laser-polarized noble gases

Gas-phase nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has great potential as a probe for a variety of interesting physical and biomedical problems that are not amenable to study by water or similar liquid. However, NMR of gases was largely neglected due to the low signal obtained from the thermally polarized gases with very low sample density. The advent of optical pumping techniques for enhancing the polarization of the noble gases³He and¹²⁹Xe has bought new life to this field, especially in medical imaging where³He lung inhalation imaging is approaching a clinical application. However, there are numerous applications in materials science that also benefit from the use of these gases. We review primarily nonmedical applications of laser-polarized noble gases for both NMR imaging and spectroscopy and highlight progress with examples from our laboratory including high-resolution imaging at millitesla applied field strength and velocity imaging of convective flow. Porous media microstucture has been probed with both thermal and laser-polarized xenon, as xenon is an ideal probe due to low surface interaction with the grains of the porous media.     

Collisional polarizability anisotropies of the noble gases

We present a simple approximate calculation of the pair polarizability anisotropy β(R) of interacting inert gas atoms, including overlap effects. The overlap contribution to β(R) is found to be relatively long-range and to have an exponential form. We compare our results with recent ab initio Hartree-Fock calculations and experimental low density depolarized scattering spectra; agreement is excellent.     

Impact broadening and shift of RbnS andnD levels by noble gases

The impact broadening and shift of RbnS andnD levels by the noble gases He, Ar and Xe have been measured by Doppler-free two-photon absorption from the 5S ground state in a thermionic diode up to high principal quantum numbers. The dependence of the broadening rates onn was found to be in qualitative agreement with theoretical data. While the broadening and shift rates of the RbnS andnD levels due to collisions with He or Ar show only slightly different dependences along the series, the corresponding Rb-Xe data present strong differences indicating large contributions by inelastic collisions. For largen the broadening data were found to be independent of the principal quantum number and the angular momentuml. The measured constant values cannot be explained by taking only into account the polarisation contribution. It was found to be a factor of 1.5 to 2 larger than the corresponding theoretical predictions. The shift rates aren-andl-independent and in satisfactory agreement with theoretical values for large principal quantum numbers.     

Muon spin rotation in liquid noble gases

A new mechanism of slow muon depolarization in liquid noble gases is suggested. The muon spin polarization in [A-μ-A]⁺ complexes is calculated. The results allow one to observe [A-μ-A]⁺ experimentally and to measure hyperfine interaction constants.     

Thin free arcs in alkali-seeded noble gases

Thin arcs (e.g. those observed in noble gas magnetohydrodynamic generators) are analyzed. The spatial distributions of the important plasma quantities are calculated by solving the appropriate balance equations. Solutions are obtained for cesium-seeded argon as well as for pure argon. The solutions yield characteristic radial dimensions which are in agreement with known experimental values. The effects of variations of important arc parameters are discussed in the case of cesium-seeded argon. It appears that the effects of the parameter variations can be explained to a large extent by a simplified expression for the radial dimension of the arc. Deviation from local thermodynamic equilibrium is only significant in the outer region of the arc and has practically no influence on the arc properties     

稀有气体纯质热物理性质的预测

根据量子力学和分子运动学理论,采用稀有气体的ab initio势能,分别计算了氦-4、氖、氩、氪和氙纯质在低密度时的热物理性质,包括第二维里系数,热扩散系数和热扩散因子,计算的温度范围为50—5000 K.预测结果具有较高的精度,与采用经验势能的计算结果相比,本文结果更接近实验数据和REFPROP 8.0的标准值,为相关的科学研究和工程应用提供了所需的基础数据. 关键词： ab initio势能')" href="#">ab initio势能 稀有气体 热物理性质     

Isotopic thermal diffusion factors of the noble gases

A new set of isotopic thermal diffusion factors for Ar, Kr and Xe is reported. The data have been obtained from thermal diffusion column measurements in a column previously calibrated with Ne gas, and complete the α_T data for the binary mixtures of noble gases given previously. The results lead to the conclusion that the thermal diffusion properties of the noble gases and their mixtures are well described by the law of corresponding states first proposed by Kestin, Ro and Wakeham. It is also concluded that the calibration technique used makes the thermal diffusion column a valuable instrument for the determination of the thermal diffusion factors of isotopic and non-isotopic dilute gas mixtures.     

High pressure of solid noble gases in metals

The fact that noble gas ions implanted in metals with concentrations of a few percent precipitate at room temperature as solid bubbles under high pressure with a structure epitaxial with the host matrix (fcc or hcp) has been investigated recently. A brief survey of the results measured by transmission electron microscopy, glancing angle X-ray diffraction, energy-loss spectroscopy and positron annihilation is given. The main part of this paper deals with a study on⁸³Kr⁺ implanted in Al using Mössbauer spectroscopy. The results are as follows: the precipitates grow from 1.5 nm after implantation to 3.7 nm after 700 K annealing. The recoilless fractions can be fitted very well to a Debye model. On annealing. the characteristic Mössbauer temperature gradually decreases from 89 K to 64 K, the value for solid Kr at 1 bar. At the same time a decrease in the isomer shift is observed. Even after annealing at 700 K our experiments do not show melting in the temperature range 0–230 K.     

惰性气体原子间相互作用势比较研究

原子间相互作用势是预测惰性气体输运性质的必要输入条件. 文章对描述惰性气体原子间相互作用的Lennard-Jones势、指数排斥势、Hartree-Fock-Dispersion-B (HFD-B)势和唯象势的形式和特点进行了分析. 基于Chapman-Enskog方法, 计算得到了惰性气体在300–5000 K温度区间内基于四种原子相互作用势的黏性和热导率, 并与文献报道的实验和理论计算结果进行了比较. 研究结果表明, 基于Hartree-Fock排斥理论与色散理论发展起来的HFD-B势能够合理反映惰性气体原子相互作用的趋势与特征, 因而可以较好地预测惰性气体的宏观输运性质.     

The double M-effect induced by noble gases activated with negative ions

The M-effect (monochromatization-effect) is a powerful tool which can give high intensity monochromatic spectra with a certain wavelength depending on the type of used gas mixtures to generate plasma state. The effect consists in the emission of a single spectral line of plasmas ignited in certain gas mixtures. The main condition to obtain the M effect is the presence of an electropositive and an electronegative gas mixture. For example, in the case of Ne+H₂ monochrome radiation was obtained, the wavelength of Ne being 585.3 nm (1s²–2p⁵). In this paper we prove the general character of this effect, i.e. if the optical emission spectra reduced to nearly one line can be observed also in other gas mixture discharges, for example in the case of one electronegative gas and two electropositive gases. Different other mixtures, as Xe+Ne+H₂ and Xe+Ar+H₂ have been studied. In all these cases, the M-effect appeared without doubt.     

Excitation of molecular vibrations by positron impact

Absolute cross sections for the vibrational excitation of CO, CO2, and H2 by positron impact are presented for incident positron energies from 0.5 eV to several electron volts. The measurements use a novel technique that exploits the adiabatic motion of a positron beam in a strong magnetic field. This work is the first systematic experimental study of vibrational excitation by positron impact, and extends to energies where positron measurements have traditionally been difficult. The measured cross sections are compared with available theoretical calculations.     

Ionization of K-shell electrons by positron impact

We have investigated the universal scaling behavior for cross sections of the single K-shell ionization by positron impact. The calculations are performed within the framework of non-relativistic perturbation theory, taking into account the one-photon exchange. Special emphasis is laid on the near-threshold energy domain. The results obtained are applicable for wide family of atomic targets.