2021/03/25 by Ricardo A. Broglia, F. Barranco, Broglia, R. A. +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Nuclear physics research studies #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2103.13536
openalex publication_date 2021/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The phenomenon of low-temperature superconductivity is intimately associated with the condensation of weakly bound, very extended, strongly overlapping Cooper pairs, and systematic experimental studies of the associated mean square radius (coherence length) have been made. While the extension of BCS theory to the atomic nucleus has been successful beyond expectation, to our knowledge, no measurement of the nuclear coherence length (expected to be much larger than nuclear dimensions) has been reported in the literature. Recent studies of Cooper pair transfer across a Josephson-like junction, transiently established in a heavy ion collision between superfluid nuclei, have likely changed the situation, providing the experimental input for a quantitative estimate of the nuclear coherence length, as well as the basis for a nuclear analogue of the (ac) Josephson effect.