Relevance of the electronic environment for the neutron scattering behavior of protons

✍ Scribed by T. Abdul-Redah; P.A. Georgiev; M. Krzystyniak; D.K. Ross; C.A. Chatzidimitriou-Dreismann

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 165 KB
• Volume: 385-386
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-4526
• DOI: 10.1016/j.physb.2006.05.101

✦ Synopsis

A large number of neutron Compton scattering (NCS) experiments on hydrogen containing materials like liquid water, metal hydrogen systems and organic compounds has been reported on where a striking effect of a strong neutron proton scattering cross section shortfall has been found. This effect-which has been very recently confirmed using electron-proton Compton scattering on organic polymers-was attributed to the existence of short lived protonic quantum entanglement and/or to the breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation during the scattering process. Recent NCS experiments on various metal hydrogen systems strongly indicate the relevance of the electronic environment surrounding the proton. Concretely, changing the electronic charge density around or the bonding conditions of the protons leads to different cross section anomalies in those materials. It is concluded that the electronic environment determines the decoherence process of the protons thus leading to these different anomalous shortfalls.