Momentum Distribution Spectroscopy Using Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that deep inelastic neutron scattering can accurately measure the anharmonic contributions to the momentum distribution of hydrogen in a bonded system, providing detailed insights into atomic motion.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of neutron scattering to quantify anharmonic effects in atomic momentum distributions with high precision.

Findings

Successfully measured 13 anharmonic coefficients at 2-3 sigma confidence.

Achieved better than a few percent accuracy in momentum distribution measurements.

Validated the method on potassium binoxalate, a hydrogen-bonded system.

Abstract

We show that deep inelastic neutron scattering from hydrogen(or other light nuclei) can be used to measure a spectrum of anharmonic contributions to the target atom momentum distribution with high and known accuracy . The method is applied here to determine the momentum distribution of the hydrogen in the hydrogen bonded system KHC2O4(potassium binoxalate), where 13 anharmonic coefficients are obtained at the 2-sigma to 3-sigma level. The momentum distribution is obtained to an accuracy of better than few percent at all significant values of momentum.