Tunneling from electron bubbles beneath the surface of liquid helium

✍ Scribed by Milton W. Cole; James R. Klein

• Publisher: Springer US
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 623 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-2291
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00118710

✦ Synopsis

Schoepe and Rayfield have measured the lifetime ~'for escape of electrons from bubbles beneath a liquid He surface. We compute "r using the tunneling Hamiltonian method of Bardeen. If accepted bubble parameters are assumed, ~-is found to be approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than the measured value. Agreement with experiment can be obtained if the radius is taken to be 50% larger than currently believed. We consider the effects of diffuseness of the bubble boundary, diffuseness of the liquid-vapor interface, and polarizability of the bubble. A discrepancy remains which may be explicable in terms of surface deformation when the bubble is very close to the surface.