Smaller Atoms

That babble I posted over at Jen's about Picotechnology wasn't entirely babble. See, for example, this page on muonic atoms:

A muon m is a lepton with mass of 105MeV

It is possible to replace one of the electron in an atom by a negative muon.
[Scary-looking equations go here.]

Therefore muonic orbits much closer to nucleus

Or this one:

Since the muon (mu) mass is 206.77 times larger than the electron (me) mass,the atomic radius of muonic systems is approximately 200 times smaller than the H atom bohr radius.Since mu/mp~ 0.1,where mp is a proton mass, considerable isotope effects are expected to occur in muonic molecules.The lifetime of the muon is ~ 2 ns,which is much longer than current intense laser pulse durations,thus allowing in principle a possibility to manipulate muonic systems by superintense (I> 10 **20 W/cm2) lasers. Such high intensities are required since the ionization potentials are consequently 200 times larger than H and the muonic unit of laser intensity becomes 200**4 times larger than the atomic unit Io= 3.5 x 10 **16 W/cm2.The corresponding muonic time unit is 200 times shorter than the atomic one (24 attoseconds),ie 120 zeptoseconds. We derive scaling rules for the behavior of muonic atoms and molecules exposed to superintense laser fields using quasistatic models of tunnelling ionization and dissociaition akin to our previous work on H2+ in intense laser fields, ( Phys Rev Lett 84,3562(2000), Phys Rev A 63,,023409 (2001)). Ionization and dissociation rates for the muonic systems, ppu,ddu,ttu,will be presented for currently available superintense (I~10**22 W/cm2) 800 nm laser pulses in order to discuss manipulation scenarios such as laser induced recollision at such ultrahigh intensities where proton ponderomotive energies of 1 MeV can be now created.

Zeptoseconds! Haha! Those wacky physicists!

But anyway: Smaller atoms! Coming soon to a store near you! But you have to act fast.

Update: This is why my lab exploded. Well, that and three hundred cases of Jolt Cola on a hot summer day...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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