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Quantum levitation of nanoparticles seen with ultracold neutrons

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Abstract

Analyzing new experiments with ultracold neutrons (UCNs) we show that physical adsorption of nanoparticles/nanodroplets, levitating in high-excited states in a deep and broad potential well formed by van der Waals/Casimir-Polder (vdW/CP) forces results in new effects on a cross-road of the fields of fundamental interactions, neutron, surface and nanoparticle physics. Accounting for the interaction of UCNs with nanoparticles explains a recently discovered intriguing so-called “small heating” of UCNs in traps. It might be relevant to the striking conflict of the neutron lifetime experiments with smallest reported uncertainties by adding false effects there.

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Correspondence to V. V. Nesvizhevsky.

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Published in Russian in Kristallografiya, 2013, Vol. 58, No. 5, pp. 730–736.

The article was translated by the authors.

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Nesvizhevsky, V.V., Voronin, A.Y., Lambrecht, A. et al. Quantum levitation of nanoparticles seen with ultracold neutrons. Crystallogr. Rep. 58, 743–748 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063774513050088

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063774513050088

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