The radiation from a Mössbauer source of 57Co in a copper matrix is frequency-modulated by vibrating the source with a quartz piezo-crystal driven by an oscillator. If the radiation passes through a resonant absorber (a "filter"), a time structure containing the oscillator frequency and its harmonics appears in the resulting counting rate. It may be seen by sorting the time of each count with respect to the cross-over time of a subharmonic of the oscillator. These quantum beats are caused by interferences between the frequency components of the photon amplitude, and vanish unless there is some alteration of relative phase or amplitude of the original radiation by the filter. The harmonic constitution of the beats is a sensitive function of the relative shift of source and filter and may be used as a sensitive probe of small shifts. This is demonstrated by measuring the temperature shift in 57Fe-Be. If a velocity spectrum is made with counts collected during only a part of the vibration cycle, prominent dispersion effects are seen, with counting rates higher than background in some portions of the spectrum. A classical optical theory of the phenomenon is presented in summary. It explains the beats, the dispersion effects, and the sensitivity of the harmonic ratios to relative shifts.
Quantum-beat and sideband spectra of recoilless $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ radiation of
57Fe were measured as a function of frequency and the voltage on the quartz crystal on which a
57Co source was deposited. The sideband spectra were analyzed using a Rice distribution of the modulation index. The width of this distribution was shown to depend on the frequency; the narrowest distribution was found at 9.795 MHz. The results of the quantum-beat measurements are in agreement with the optical theory of Monahan and Perlow.
A classical optical theory is given for the phenomenon of $\ensuremath{\gamma}$-ray quantum beats observed by Perlow in a study of the M\"ossbauer effect of a frequency-modulated source. The intensity $I({\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}},t)$ of the radiation from such a source transmitted through a resonant absorber is obtained as a function of ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and
t, where ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ is the frequency of an absorber resonance, ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}$ is the central frequency of the frequency-modulated source, and
t is the laboratory time. An average is taken over the unobserved initial formation time of the excited nuclear state in the source. When viewed at fixed ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, the calculated intensity displays beats in the time spectrum, and when viewed at fixed
t, the intensity shows dispersion at appropriate values of ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, responsible for the observed enhancement of intensity above background. The harmonic content of the quantum beats is calculated explicitly in the thin-absorber limit, and the observed linear variation about ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}}=0$ of the ratio of Fourier components
D2D1 is explained. The use of
D2D1 to measure small frequency shifts is analyzed by a statistical comparison with the method of switching between steepest points of the line, as used in gravitational-red-shift measurements. The variances are comparable. The effect on $I({\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}},t)$ of line broadening due to sample inhomogeneities is calculated for a Lorentz distribution of center frequencies in source and absorber, and a prescription is given for modifying the various terms in $I({\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\omega}}_{0}^{\ensuremath{'}},t)$ accordingly. Finally, the effect of a distribution of phase and amplitude of the motion of the vibrating source is discussed.
Due to the virtual photon exchange between atomic nuclei and the field of zero-point electromagnetic oscillations, some nuclei of a given sample are in a virtual excited state with the lifetime ∼ħ/ E , where E is the energy of nuclear level. For 57 Fe nuclei, whose first excited state has an energy of 14.4 keV, this time is equal to ∼4.6×10 −20 s. If a thin 57 Fe Mössbauer gamma-ray absorber is surrounded by a thick screen of the same atoms, the number of virtual excited nuclei in the absorber decreases and, at first glance, it should more strongly absorb Mössbauer gamma rays emitted by an external source and passing through the absorber. In this work, the ratio of the intensities of 14.4-keV gamma rays emitted by the 57 Fe nuclide and passing through the thin resonant absorber is measured in the absence and presence of the resonant screen around the absorber. Comparison shows that these ratios measured for the gamma source at rest and in the oscillating state differ by 0.00123±0.00075. This value should be treated as the upper limit for the desired effect under these experimental conditions.
Abstract The transformation of exponentially decaying waveform (the time dependence of detection probability) of a Mössbauer γ -ray photon into a regular sequence of short nearly bandwidth-limited pulses in a vibrating recoilless resonant absorber is studied. The case of dual-tone vibration at the fundamental frequency and its second harmonic under experimentally feasible conditions is considered. We show that this technique allows one to shorten pulses and increase the ratio of pulse separation to pulse length as well as to enlarge pulse amplitude compared to the pulses produced in harmonically vibrating absorber. The obtained results pave the way to the development of the time-resolved Mössbauer γ -ray spectroscopy and manipulation of quantum information in hard x-ray/ γ -ray range.
This study provides a detailed theoretical description of periodic γ -ray intensity signals. These signals are generated by the tabletop time coincidence experimental setups which utilize nuclear resonant interaction of γ -photons from a radioactive source with an absorber exhibiting ultrasonic vibrations. Transmission of the γ -radiation field through the absorber is described by semiclassical theory considering arbitrary periodic motion of the absorber. A key aspect of the presented work is the application of the Fourier analysis. A fundamental relation between the Fourier coefficients of the γ -ray intensity signal and the Fourier coefficients of a complex exponential of the absorber motion is derived. Application of this relation is shown on the example of the trapezoid motion, which demonstrates its usability for systematic inspection of the discussed signals. The results of the analysis expand the knowledge of the coherent manipulation of γ -photons and may find usage in a broad range of research fields utilizing γ -ray sources.