Quantum reflection shields ultracold atoms
Aug 10, 2004
When a ball rolls down a hill, the last thing
you expect is for it to suddenly stop and
then roll straight back up the hill. At the
atomic scale, however, the wave nature of
particles becomes important and can lead
to a counterintuitive phenomenon called
quantum reflection. This is a purely quantum-
mechanical process in which a particle
moving in a given direction can reverse its
direction of motion without reaching a classical
turning point. It is thus the counterpart
of quantum tunnelling, in which a particle
can penetrate a potential barrier in a way
that is forbidden by classical mechanics.
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