Long-Range Excitation of Collective Modes in Mesoscopic Metal Clusters

TL;DR

This paper presents a semiclassical theory for long-range plasmon excitation in atomic clusters, accounting for resonance width, and applies it to sodium clusters interacting with electrons and protons.

Contribution

It introduces a new semiclassical approach based on the doorway hypothesis for plasmon excitation in mesoscopic metal clusters.

Findings

Effective modeling of plasmon resonances in sodium clusters.

Quantitative analysis of electron and proton collision effects.

Inclusion of resonance width improves excitation predictions.

Abstract

We develop a semiclassical theory for the long range excitation of plasmon resonances in atomic clusters, based on the doorway hypothesis. The effect of the width of the plasmon resonance is fully taken into account. As an application we study plasmon excitation in small Sodium clusters, in collisions with electrons and protons.