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Rydberg Molecule Created For the First Time

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:28 PM
from the not-around-long-enough-for-a-group-photo dept.
Science News
krou writes "The BBC is reporting that the Rydberg molecule has been formed from two atoms of rubidium. Proven in theory, this is the first time it's been created, reinforcing the fundamental quantum theories of Enrico Fermi. Chris Greene, the theoretical physicist who first predicted that the Rydberg molecules could exist, said: 'The Rydberg electron resembles a sheepdog that keeps its flock together by roaming speedily to the outermost periphery of the flock, and nudging back towards the centre any member that might begin to drift away.' It's a sheepdog with a very short life-span, however; the longest lived molecule only lasted 18 microseconds. Vera Bendkowsky, who led the research, explained how they created the molecule: 'The nuclei of the atoms have to be at the correct distance from each other for the electron fields to find each other and interact. We use an ultracold cloud of rubidium — as you cool it, the atoms in the gas move closer together. We excite the atoms to the Rydberg stage with a laser. If we have a gas at the critical density, with two atoms at the correct distance that are able to form the molecule, and we excite one to the Rydberg state, then we can form a molecule.'"
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Submission: Rydberg molecule created for the first time by krou (1027572)
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  • First Molecule! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrslacker (1122161) on Friday April 24 2009, @12:33PM (#27704117)

    'Nuff said.

  • They really are short lived. 18 seconds would be an eternity for them, apparently.

    (So, the summary here presently says "the longest lived molecule only lasted 18 seconds." whereas the article says "the longest lived Rydberg molecule survives for just 18 microseconds." Rather large difference.)

  • Well (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If you modulate an inverse tachion beam you should be able to get the same results.

  • Scotty! (Score:4, Funny)

    by TaoPhoenix (980487) <TaoPhoenix@yahoo.com> on Friday April 24 2009, @12:42PM (#27704259)

    "Captain, I canna hold the DiRubidium together any longer..."

  • Smart and Smarter... (Score:4, Funny)

    by geekmux (1040042) on Friday April 24 2009, @12:42PM (#27704275)

    "...We use an ultracold cloud of rubidium â" as you cool it, the atoms in the gas move closer together. We excite the atoms to the Rydberg stage with a laser. If we have a gas at the critical density, with two atoms at the correct distance that are able to form the molecule, and we excite one to the Rydberg state, then we can form a molecule."

    Uhhh, yeah, what he said.

    18 seconds or 18 microseconds? Could mean the difference between winning or losing the purse at the first-ever electron bull rodeo...

  • I RTFA, but can someone more well-versed in Physics explain what sort of implications this has?

    Does it validate some kind of Quantum Mechanics theory?

    Does it have any practical application, either now or in the distant future?

    • Re:What are the implications of this discovery? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2009, @12:57PM (#27704485)

      Inexpesnive flying cars and effective robot wives.

    • Not much. Being able to create Rydberg molecules via physical experiment just serves to help validate the theories that predict them.

      Now if they had created Zoidberg molecules, the implications would be huge, particularly in the realm of Decapodian cell biology.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Red Flayer (890720)
        [sigh]

        NOT informative. I answered nothing not gleanable from the first few lines of the summary. It was a setup for a piss-poor attempt at Friday humor.

        I swear, sometimes I feel like I have a "Mod me up inappropriately" note taped to my back.
        • Well THAT just got you modded up.

          Again.

          Sometimes (especially on Fridays) who can't win.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by east coast (590680)
          I swear, sometimes I feel like I have a "Mod me up inappropriately" note taped to my back.

          You must be new around here.

        • telling a joke and being taken seriously

          happened to me yesterday: i make a stupid joke about skynet, and apparently someone thinks i was insightful

          http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1209623&cid=27693127 [slashdot.org]

          wtf? its disturbing to be modded insightful for this. who the hell thinks i was being insightful? why?!

          its like going fishing and catching a dead baby. you made the joke for a little fun, and instead you get a horrible line of thought: someone out there is deadly serious about light hearted mirth

          • Re:whats worse than telling an unfunny joke? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Red Flayer (890720) on Friday April 24 2009, @02:07PM (#27705363) Journal

            its like going fishing and catching a dead baby.

            What's not to laugh about that? You can't spell slaughter without laughter.

            Reminds me of a story...

            When I was a kid, my oldest sister was a park ranger at a nearby state park with a lake. One day they get radioed by an old guy on a canoe, who said he caught a body. Sure enough, he had... and in trying to retrieve his lure, he dislodged the body from whatever was holding it under, and it floated to the surface.

            Apparently, he wasn't the first one to hook into it... just the first to retrieve it. When the puddlepolice boat motored out to him, he was furtively cutting lures our of the body and putting them in his tackle box.

            Totally irrelevant, I know.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by $1uck (710826)
          I can only hope the moderators were being humorous. zoidberg particles? Or maybe its time to start moving my investment portfolio over to sandwiches.

          • Re:What are the implications of this discovery? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Red Flayer (890720) on Friday April 24 2009, @01:36PM (#27704931) Journal
            I neither care about nor need karma.

            Moderations should be made accurately, not some other fashion to game the karma system.

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by plover (150551) *

              Moderations should be made accurately, not some other fashion to game the karma system.

              The moderation / karma system exists with or without your best intentions. People will use it as they see fit, regardless of whether or not you consider it "use" or "abuse".

              Long ago I figured "it's utterly trivial" so I stopped worrying about it. Much easier that way, as I don't have to explain myself to some self-appointed slashdot apologist.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mhall119 (1035984)

      I'm not real sure of the implications, but after reading the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], it seems that this kind of molecule may behave more like a single atom with two nuclei than a typical two-atom molecule. This may offer new confinement possibilities in fusion research, but I'm no physicist.

    • In the realm of subatomic physics, if you create a molecule that nobody else has ever seen before, than this is considered conclusive evidence that your penis is much bigger than that of all the other scientists. Hence the implication is that these scientists will score much more with all those nubile, hot young physics groupies. "Oh baby, show me your Bose-Einstein Condensate!"

      • ...all those nubile, hot young physics groupies...

        Scientist: "Hah! well mine is 100 nanometers!, and can go on for up to 18 microseconds"

        All those nubile, hot young physics groupies: "Ohhhh my! That is so large! And lasts so long!"

        Scientist: "Now who's your Daddy?"

        All those nubile, hot young physics groupies: *squeals of delight, desire, adulation, and one porcine*

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Hurricane78 (562437)

      I'm sure, there's a Wikipedia article about it. If not... Well, to me it looks like a Bose-Einstein condensate, but made of two whole atoms.
      For those condensates, they use pretty much the same technique.

    • Re:What are the implications of this discovery? (Score:5, Informative)

      by radtea (464814) on Friday April 24 2009, @01:51PM (#27705121)

      I RTFA, but can someone more well-versed in Physics explain what sort of implications this has?

      Not my field, but this is my sense of what's going on:

      1) Rydberg atoms have one electron in a very high state of excitation, and look like Bohr-model atoms, as the highly-excited single outer electron is so far from the rest of the atom that the combination of the inner electrons and the nuclear charge look like a point-charge, so the outer electron experiences a 1/r potential. This makes Rydberg atoms theoretically tractable with simple Bohr theory, which is always fun to play with.

      2) Rydberg molecules are make from a Rydberg atom and a normal (unexcited) atom. My guess is that the normal atom is actually inside the "orbit" of the Rydberg atom's outer electron, so it will be slightly polarized by the core field, and the resulting dipole will interact with the electron to produce the bound state. Sounds like a job for linear response theory.

      3) In general, testing systems under such extreme conditions allows us to measure precisely various properties of matter, like the fine structure constant or the electric charge or whatever. I don't know if anything like that will come out of this, but extreme systems often allow for precise tests of esoteric phenomena.

      4) Yes, this does validate quantum theory. No, it probably doesn't have much in they way of practical application, but then again, it doesn't have to.

      • Re:What are the implications of this discovery? (Score:5, Informative)

        by LatencyKills (1213908) on Friday April 24 2009, @02:19PM (#27705499)
        It's been something like 20 years, but I did Rydberg atom work (using Helium atoms) back in graduate school (another student was running the vacuum rig, and I was providing the lasers for excitation and containment). As the previous poster wrote, a Rydberg atom has a single electron up in an energy state so high that it is almost unrelated to the atom which (weakly) holds it. The creation of a Rydberg molecule allows for the confirmation of a number of quantum mechanical oddities - things that were predicted by theory but couldn't be measured in a lab. It can also allow some real insight into the nature of shared bonds between atoms in a molecule and studies of weak electromagnetic forces. The Rydberg atoms themselves allowed for interactions involving electrons that were essentially at a zero kinetic energy state, teetering on the edge of a relatively enormous potential well (which is why they tend to last such a short period of time before de-excitation to some lower state).
  • ... but if I remember it correctly, Rydberg molecules have been found in interstellar clouds where both matter density and temperature are very low compared to on-Earth laboratory environments. In space, they are not subjected to frequent interaction with other atoms, which could easily destroy their fragile Rydberg states.
  • Error detected. All news stories of esoteric pure science experiments must conclude, "Spokesman for the lab, Dr Sor Eass, said that this phenomenon could lead to faster computers in the next five to ten years."

  • Can't be done (Score:4, Funny)

    by cwiegmann24 (1476667) on Friday April 24 2009, @01:15PM (#27704711)
    "Unimaginably cold temperatures are needed to create the molecules, as Vera Bendkowsky from the University of Stuttgart who led the research explained."

    If you can't even imagine the cold temperatures, how can they get it cold enough? Shenanagins

    • Easy (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall (25149)

      If you can't even imagine the cold temperatures, how can they get it cold enough?

      They use the guy who totally lacks imagination to set it up. There's at least one in every lab...

      You can do anything if you literal-minded enough and have someone to tell you what impossible thing to do. :-)

    • Re:Can't be done (Score:5, Funny)

      by Red Flayer (890720) on Friday April 24 2009, @02:01PM (#27705261) Journal
      It's very easy to get unimaginably cold numbers, unless you are using Kelvins.

      Say your temperature is -64 degrees.
      Now take the square root of that.
      What you have left is a temperature of 8i degrees.
      So we have an imaginary temperature.
      Now, to get an unimaginary cold temperature, you've got to start with a positive temperature that is cold.

      So 4 degrees is cold; furthermore, it is unimaginary, since even if you take a square root you will not get an imaginary number.

      There is no problem with that statement.

  • Basic facts about Rb_2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by modrzej (1450687) <m DOT m DOT modr ... AT gmail DOT com> on Friday April 24 2009, @01:40PM (#27704975)
    I've done a little research using Scholar (Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2458 - 2461 (2000)) and it seems that basic facts about Rydberg molecules are: 1) These are molecules made of two atoms of the same kind, enormously separated (minima of potential curves for example at about 1500 atomic units); 2) Because of extremly shallow minima of energy curve in witch they exist, they are unstable, so must be ultra cold; 3) This Rb_2 molecule despite being homonuclear, displays large dipole moment, which is unusual but predicted by theory. The experiment with rubidium described here proves that approximate quantum theory (I bet that existence of this molecule was predicted using Born-Oppenheimer approximation) is capable of describing effects subtle as this one (existence of Rb_2 Rydberg molecule is subtle one). I'm not an expert in relativistic effects, but it seems to me that this example of extremely distant separation of atoms in molecule could call for relativistic treatment: one Rb atom doesn't know of the other at once, because the information about the movement of the other can't travel faster than light. This effect may be big because of separation of these two atoms.

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