2005/03/11 by D. N. McKinsey, W. H. Lippincott, J. Nikkel +3 · 29 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Fluorescence #Helium #Laser #Laser-induced fluorescence #Materials science #Metastability #Molecule #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Superfluid helium-4 #Superfluidity #TRACE (psycholinguistics) #astro-ph #nucl-ex #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.111101
published in Physical Review Letters 95(11), 111101 (American Physical Society) · 10 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Physical Review Letters
arxiv created 2005/03/11 · openalex publication_date 2005/09/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We describe an approach to detecting ionizing radiation that combines the special properties of superfluid helium with the sensitivity of quantum optics techniques. Ionization in liquid helium results in the copious production of metastable He2 molecules, which can be detected by laser-induced fluorescence. Each molecule can be probed many times using a cycling transition, resulting in the detection of individual molecules with high signal to noise. This technique could be used to detect neutrinos, weakly interacting massive particles, and ultracold neutrons, and to image superfluid flow in liquid 4He.