Molecular Physics Longuet-Higgins Young Author's Prize 2013 winner profile

摘要

Atomic nuclei, being quantum particles, delocalise due to Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This effect is more pronounced the lower the temperature and the smaller the mass of the nucleus. On the other hand interatomic interactions that make molecules out of individual atoms counteract this tendency by confining the otherwise free particles. Our study shows that these two competing effects result in a counter-intuitive behaviour of protons shared in hydrogen bonds at superfluid helium temperatures (about 1 K). It turns out that these protons undergo such a strong interaction-induced localisation that their effective size becomes smaller than that of much heavier chlorine or oxygen atoms involved in the very same hydrogen bonds.