Nuclear gamma-ray laser: the evolution of the idea

Journal Article · Fri Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Quantum Electronics (Woodbury, N.Y.)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1070/QE2007V037N08ABEH013541· OSTI ID:21466708

Rivlin, Lev A ^[1]

---

1. Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automatics (Technical University), Moscow (Russian Federation)

The evolution of the foreign and native search for solving the problem of a nuclear gamma-ray laser (NGL), which has been attracting attention for almost half a century despite the absence at present of any convincing data about its experimental solution, is considered. It is shown that the key conflict inherent in any conception of the NGL is the antagonism between the necessity to accumulate a sufficient amount of excited nuclei and the requirement to narrow down the emission gamma-ray line to its natural radiative width. The critical analysis of different approaches for solving this conflict (Moessbauer scheme, deeply cooled ensembles of free nuclei with the hidden inversion, nuclear inversionless amplification, two-quantum gamma emission in counterpropagating photon beams, hypothetical amplifying medium of long-lived isomers in a Bose-Einstein condensate) shows that this search is important not only due to the expected result, which could stimulate the development of quantum nucleonics as a new branch in physics, but also is of interest due to a variety of physical disciplines and experimental approaches used in this search. (invited paper)

• OSTI ID: 21466708
• Journal Information: Quantum Electronics (Woodbury, N.Y.), Vol. 37, Issue 8; Conference: LO'2006: 12. conference on laser optics, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), 26-30 Jun 2006; Other Information: DOI: 10.1070/QE2007v037n08ABEH013541; ISSN 1063-7818
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS
AMPLIFICATION
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
EXCITATION
GAMMA RADIATION
GASERS
ISOMERS
LINE WIDTHS
MOESSBAUER EFFECT
NUCLEI
PHOTON BEAMS
PHOTON EMISSION
QUANTUM MECHANICS
BEAMS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EMISSION
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
MECHANICS
RADIATIONS