Reflection of Slow Atoms
Although the principles of quantum mechanics apply to any particles, usually the term quantum reflection means reflection of atoms from a surface of condensed matter (liquid or solid). The full potential experienced by the incident atom does become repulsive at a very small distance from the surface (of order of size of atoms). This is when the atom becomes aware of the discrete character of material. This repulsion is responsible for the classical scattering one would expect for particles incident on a surface. Such scattering is diffuse rather than specular, and so this component of the reflection is easy to distinguish. Indeed to reduce this part of the physical process, a grazing angle of incidence is used; this enhances the quantum reflection. This requirement of small incident velocities for the particles means that the non-relativistic approximation to quantum mechanics is all that is required.
Read more about this topic: Quantum Reflection
Famous quotes containing the words reflection of, reflection, slow and/or atoms:
“With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially provincial still, not metropolitan,—mere Jonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufacturers and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Americans ... have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“Phenomenal nature shadows him wherever he goes. Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another, by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him. His inmost thoughts are discussed at nightfall, in manual alphabet, by darkly gesticulating trees. Pebbles or stains or sunflecks form patterns representing in some awful way messages which he must intercept. Everything is a cipher and of everything he is the theme.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Ask me no more where Jove bestows,
When June is past, the fading rose;
For in your beauty’s orient deep
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray
The golden atoms of the day;
For in pure love heaven did prepare
Those powders to enrich your hair.”
—Thomas Carew (1589–1639)