Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1312.5754 · Physical Review B

Quantum sticking of atoms on membranes

Dennis P. Clougherty

Published Dec 5, 2014• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A continuum model for low-energy physisorption on a membrane under tension is proposed and studied with variational mean-field theory. A discontinuous change in the energy-dependent sticking coefficient is predicted under certain conditions. This singularity is a result of the bosonic orthogonality catastrophe of the vibrational states of the membrane. The energy-dependent sticking coefficient is predicted to have exponential scaling in $1/E$ at energies above the singularity. The application of this model to the quantum sticking of cold hydrogen to suspended graphene is discussed. The model predicts that a beam of atomic hydrogen can be completely reflected by suspended graphene at ultralow energies.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.90.245412

Related papers

Orthogonality Catastrophe in Quantum Sticking

Dennis P. Clougherty, Yanting Zhang

We show that the orthogonality catastrophe can dramatically affect the probability with which an ultralow energy atom or ion will stick to a surface. We predict new energy-dependent scaling laws for the sticking probability in this low-energy regime. We provide numerical results of this theory for the case of ultracold electrons sticking to the surface of highly porous silicon and show that the sticking probability can differ substantially from that calculated with perturbation theory. We then generalize our results for finite surface temperatures and find surprisingly that the sticking probability can change sharply, vanishing below a critical incident energy that varies with the surface temperature. We describe in detail this superreflective surface phase for ultralow energy matter waves where the reflection coefficient is strictly equal to one.

arXiv:1112.4544•Physical Review Letters•Sep 18, 2012•13 citations

Infrared dynamics of cold atoms on hot graphene membranes

Sanghita Sengupta, Valeri N. Kotov, Dennis P. Clougherty

We study the infrared dynamics of low-energy atoms interacting with a sample of suspended graphene at finite temperature. The dynamics exhibits severe infrared divergences order by order in perturbation theory as a result of the singular nature of low-energy flexural phonon emission. Our model can be viewed as a two-channel generalization of the independent boson model with asymmetric atom-phonon coupling. This allows us to take advantage of the exact nonperturbative solution of the independent boson model in the stronger channel while treating the weaker one perturbatively. In the low-energy limit, the exact solution can be viewed as a resummation (exponentiation) of the most divergent diagrams in the perturbative expansion. As a result of this procedure, we obtain the atom's Green function which we use to calculate the atom damping rate, a quantity equal to the quantum sticking rate. A characteristic feature of our results is that the Green's function retains a weak, infrared cutoff dependence that reflects the reduced dimensionality of the problem. As a consequence, we predict a measurable dependence of the sticking rate on graphene sample size. We provide detailed predictions for the sticking rate of atomic hydrogen as a function of temperature and sample size. The resummation yields an enhanced sticking rate relative to the conventional Fermi golden rule result (equivalent to the one-loop atom self-energy), as higher-order processes increase damping at finite temperature.

arXiv:1603.03476•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Jun 21, 2016•7 citations

Infrared problem in quantum acoustodynamics

Dennis P. Clougherty, Sanghita Sengupta

Quantum electrodynamics (QED) provides a highly accurate description of phenomena involving the interaction of atoms with light. We argue that the quantum theory describing the interaction of cold atoms with a vibrating membrane---quantum acoustodynamics (QAD)---shares many issues and features with QED. Specifically, the adsorption of an atom on a vibrating membrane can be viewed as the counterpart to QED radiative electron capture. A calculation of the adsorption rate to lowest order in the atom-phonon coupling is finite; however, higher-order contributions suffer from an infrared problem mimicking the case of radiative capture in QED. Terms in the perturbation series for the adsorption rate diverge as a result of massless particles in the model (flexural phonons of the membrane in QAD and photons in QED). We treat this infrared problem in QAD explicitly to obtain finite results by regularizing with a low-frequency cutoff that corresponds to the inverse size of the membrane. Using a coherent-state basis for the soft-phonon final state, we then sum the dominant contributions to derive a new formula for the multiphonon adsorption rate of atoms on the membrane that gives results that are finite, nonperturbative in the atom-phonon coupling, and consistent with the Kinoshita-Lee-Nauenberg theorem. For micromembranes, we predict a reduction with increasing membrane size for the low-energy adsorption rate. We discuss the relevance of this to the adsorption of a cold gas of atomic hydrogen on suspended graphene.

arXiv:1611.09445•Physical Review A•May 12, 2017•5 citations

Dissipative Effects on Quantum Sticking

Yanting Zhang, Dennis P. Clougherty

Using variational mean-field theory, many-body dissipative effects on the threshold law for quantum sticking and reflection of neutral and charged particles are examined. For the case of an Ohmic bosonic bath, we study the effects of the infrared divergence on the probability of sticking and obtain a nonperturbative expression for the sticking rate. We find that for weak dissipative coupling α, the low-energy threshold laws for quantum sticking are modified by an infrared singularity in the bath. The sticking probability for a neutral particle with incident energy E→0 behaves asymptotically as s~E((1+α)/2(1-α)); for a charged particle, we obtain s~E(α/2(1-α)). Thus, "quantum mirrors"-surfaces that become perfectly reflective to particles with incident energies asymptotically approaching zero-can also exist for charged particles. We provide a numerical example of the effects for electrons sticking to porous silicon via the emission of a Rayleigh phonon.

arXiv:1012.4405•Physical Review Letters•Apr 26, 2012•14 citations

Variational approach to atom-membrane dynamics

Dennis P. Clougherty

Using the Dirac–Frenkel variational principle, a time-dependent description of the dynamics of a two-level system coupled to a bosonic bath is formulated. The method is applied to the case of a gas of cold atoms adsorbing to an elastic membrane at a finite temperature via phonon creation. The time-dependence of the system state is analytically calculated using Laplace transform methods, and a closed-form expression for the transition rate is obtained. Atoms in the gas transition to the adsorbed state through a resonance that has contributions from a distribution of vibrational modes of the membrane. The resonance can decay with the creation of a phonon to complete the adsorption process. The adsorption rate at low membrane temperatures agrees with the golden rule estimate to the lowest order in the coupling constant for values greater than a critical coupling strength. Below this critical coupling strength, the adsorption rate is exponentially suppressed by a phonon reduction factor whose exponent diverges with increasing adsorbent size. The rate changes discontinuously with coupling strength for low temperature membranes, and the magnitude of the discontinuity decreases with increasing temperature. These variational results suggest the quantum adsorption model may contain a first-order quantum phase transition.

arXiv:2408.16759•APL Quantum•Dec 1, 2024•3 citations

Many-body effects and resonances in universal quantum sticking of cold atoms to surfaces

Eric R. Bittner, John C. Light

The role of shape resonances and many-body effects on universal quantum sticking of ultracold atoms onto solid surfaces is examined analytically and computationally using an exactly solvable representation of the Dyson equation. We derive the self-energy renormalization of the transition amplitude between an ultracold scattering atom and the bound states on the surface in order to elucidate the role of virtual phonon exchanges in the limiting behavior of the sticking probability. We demonstrate that, to first order in the interactions for finite ranged atom–surface potentials, virtual phonons can only rescale the strength of the atom–surface coupling and do not rescale the range of the coupling. Thus, universal sticking behavior at ultralow energies is to be expected for all finite ranged potentials. We demonstrate that the onset of the universal sticking behavior depends greatly on the position of the shape resonance of the renormalized potential and for sufficiently low energy shape resonances, deviations from the universal s(E)∝√E can occur near these energies. We believe that this accounts for many of the low energy sticking trends observed in the scattering of submillikelvin H atoms from superfluid 4He films.

arXiv:chem-ph/9411001•The Journal of Chemical Physics•Feb 8, 1995•7 citations
A continuum model for low-energy physisorption on a membrane under tension is proposed and studied with variational mean-field theory. A discontinuous change in the energy-dependent sticking coefficient is predicted under certain conditions. This singularity is a result of the bosonic orthogonality catastrophe of the vibrational states of the membrane. The energy-dependent sticking coefficient is predicted to have exponential scaling in 1/E1/E1/E at energies above the singularity. The application of this model to the quantum sticking of cold hydrogen to suspended graphene is discussed. The model predicts that a beam of atomic hydrogen can be completely reflected by suspended graphene at ultralow energies.
We show that the orthogonality catastrophe can dramatically affect the probability with which an ultralow energy atom or ion will stick to a surface. We predict new energy-dependent scaling laws for the sticking probability in this low-energy regime. We provide numerical results of this theory for the case of ultracold electrons sticking to the surface of highly porous silicon and show that the sticking probability can differ substantially from that calculated with perturbation theory. We then generalize our results for finite surface temperatures and find surprisingly that the sticking probability can change sharply, vanishing below a critical incident energy that varies with the surface temperature. We describe in detail this superreflective surface phase for ultralow energy matter waves where the reflection coefficient is strictly equal to one.
We study the infrared dynamics of low-energy atoms interacting with a sample of suspended graphene at finite temperature. The dynamics exhibits severe infrared divergences order by order in perturbation theory as a result of the singular nature of low-energy flexural phonon emission. Our model can be viewed as a two-channel generalization of the independent boson model with asymmetric atom-phonon coupling. This allows us to take advantage of the exact nonperturbative solution of the independent boson model in the stronger channel while treating the weaker one perturbatively. In the low-energy limit, the exact solution can be viewed as a resummation (exponentiation) of the most divergent diagrams in the perturbative expansion. As a result of this procedure, we obtain the atom's Green function which we use to calculate the atom damping rate, a quantity equal to the quantum sticking rate. A characteristic feature of our results is that the Green's function retains a weak, infrared cutoff dependence that reflects the reduced dimensionality of the problem. As a consequence, we predict a measurable dependence of the sticking rate on graphene sample size. We provide detailed predictions for the sticking rate of atomic hydrogen as a function of temperature and sample size. The resummation yields an enhanced sticking rate relative to the conventional Fermi golden rule result (equivalent to the one-loop atom self-energy), as higher-order processes increase damping at finite temperature.
Quantum electrodynamics (QED) provides a highly accurate description of phenomena involving the interaction of atoms with light. We argue that the quantum theory describing the interaction of cold atoms with a vibrating membrane---quantum acoustodynamics (QAD)---shares many issues and features with QED. Specifically, the adsorption of an atom on a vibrating membrane can be viewed as the counterpart to QED radiative electron capture. A calculation of the adsorption rate to lowest order in the atom-phonon coupling is finite; however, higher-order contributions suffer from an infrared problem mimicking the case of radiative capture in QED. Terms in the perturbation series for the adsorption rate diverge as a result of massless particles in the model (flexural phonons of the membrane in QAD and photons in QED). We treat this infrared problem in QAD explicitly to obtain finite results by regularizing with a low-frequency cutoff that corresponds to the inverse size of the membrane. Using a coherent-state basis for the soft-phonon final state, we then sum the dominant contributions to derive a new formula for the multiphonon adsorption rate of atoms on the membrane that gives results that are finite, nonperturbative in the atom-phonon coupling, and consistent with the Kinoshita-Lee-Nauenberg theorem. For micromembranes, we predict a reduction with increasing membrane size for the low-energy adsorption rate. We discuss the relevance of this to the adsorption of a cold gas of atomic hydrogen on suspended graphene.
Using variational mean-field theory, many-body dissipative effects on the threshold law for quantum sticking and reflection of neutral and charged particles are examined. For the case of an Ohmic bosonic bath, we study the effects of the infrared divergence on the probability of sticking and obtain a nonperturbative expression for the sticking rate. We find that for weak dissipative coupling α, the low-energy threshold laws for quantum sticking are modified by an infrared singularity in the bath. The sticking probability for a neutral particle with incident energy E→0 behaves asymptotically as s~E((1+α)/2(1-α)); for a charged particle, we obtain s~E(α/2(1-α)). Thus, "quantum mirrors"-surfaces that become perfectly reflective to particles with incident energies asymptotically approaching zero-can also exist for charged particles. We provide a numerical example of the effects for electrons sticking to porous silicon via the emission of a Rayleigh phonon.
Using the Dirac–Frenkel variational principle, a time-dependent description of the dynamics of a two-level system coupled to a bosonic bath is formulated. The method is applied to the case of a gas of cold atoms adsorbing to an elastic membrane at a finite temperature via phonon creation. The time-dependence of the system state is analytically calculated using Laplace transform methods, and a closed-form expression for the transition rate is obtained. Atoms in the gas transition to the adsorbed state through a resonance that has contributions from a distribution of vibrational modes of the membrane. The resonance can decay with the creation of a phonon to complete the adsorption process. The adsorption rate at low membrane temperatures agrees with the golden rule estimate to the lowest order in the coupling constant for values greater than a critical coupling strength. Below this critical coupling strength, the adsorption rate is exponentially suppressed by a phonon reduction factor whose exponent diverges with increasing adsorbent size. The rate changes discontinuously with coupling strength for low temperature membranes, and the magnitude of the discontinuity decreases with increasing temperature. These variational results suggest the quantum adsorption model may contain a first-order quantum phase transition.
The role of shape resonances and many-body effects on universal quantum sticking of ultracold atoms onto solid surfaces is examined analytically and computationally using an exactly solvable representation of the Dyson equation. We derive the self-energy renormalization of the transition amplitude between an ultracold scattering atom and the bound states on the surface in order to elucidate the role of virtual phonon exchanges in the limiting behavior of the sticking probability. We demonstrate that, to first order in the interactions for finite ranged atom–surface potentials, virtual phonons can only rescale the strength of the atom–surface coupling and do not rescale the range of the coupling. Thus, universal sticking behavior at ultralow energies is to be expected for all finite ranged potentials. We demonstrate that the onset of the universal sticking behavior depends greatly on the position of the shape resonance of the renormalized potential and for sufficiently low energy shape resonances, deviations from the universal s(E)∝√E can occur near these energies. We believe that this accounts for many of the low energy sticking trends observed in the scattering of submillikelvin H atoms from superfluid 4He films.