Time Delay in Electron-C60 Elastic Scattering in a Dirac Bubble Potential Model

TL;DR

This paper calculates the time delay of slow electrons elastically scattering off a C60 fullerene modeled as a Dirac bubble potential, revealing significant delays due to quasi-bound states.

Contribution

It introduces a Dirac bubble potential model for C60 and computes electron scattering time delays, highlighting the role of quasi-bound states in the process.

Findings

Transmission time exceeds atomic core scattering by over ten times.

Resonances in time delay are caused by temporary electron trapping.

Quasi-bound states significantly influence scattering dynamics.

Abstract

Within the framework of a Dirac bubble potential model for the C60 fullerene shell, we calculated the time delay in slow-electron elastic scattering by C60. It appeared that the time of transmission of an electron wave packet through the Dirac bubble potential sphere that simulates a real potential of the C60 cage exceeds by more than an order of magnitude the transmission time via a single atomic core. Resonances in the time delays are due to the temporary trapping of electron into quasi-bound states before it leaves the interaction region.