Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the structure of a molecule fluctuates about its mean geometry, even in the ground state. Observing this fundamental quantum effect experimentally-particularly, revealing the collective nature of the structural quantum fluctuations-remains an unmet challenge for complex molecules. In this work, we achieved this for an 11-atom molecule by inducing its Coulomb explosion with an x-ray free-electron laser. We show that the structural fluctuations manifest themselves in correlated variations of ion momenta obtained through coincident detection of the atomic fragments from individual molecules. Our analysis scheme allows extracting these variations, despite our measurements covering only a fraction of the full 33-dimensional momentum space, thereby establishing a general approach for extracting information on high-dimensional structural dynamics using Coulomb explosion.
Source: Science
Authors: Benoît Richard, Rebecca Boll, Sourav Banerjee, Julia M. Schäfer, Zoltan Jurek, Gregor Kastirke, Kilian Fehre, Markus S. Schöffler, Nils Anders, Thomas M. Baumann, Sebastian Eckart, Benjamin Erk, Alberto De Fanis, Reinhard Dörner, Sven Grundmann, Patrik Grychtol, Max Hofmann, Markus Ilchen, Max Kircher, Katharina Kubicek, Maksim Kunitski, Xiang Li, Tommaso Mazza, Severin Meister, Niklas Melzer, Jacobo Montano, Valerija Music, Yevheniy Ovcharenko, Christopher Passow, Andreas Pier, Nils Rennhack, Jonas Rist, Daniel E. Rivas, Daniel Rolles, Ilme Schlichting, Lothar Ph. H. Schmidt, Philipp Schmidt, Daniel Trabert, Florian Trinter, Rene Wagner, Peter Walter, Pawel Ziolkowski, Artem Rudenko, Michael Meyer, Robin Santra, Ludger Inhester, Till Jahnke
Institutions: Universität Hamburg, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser, Goethe University Frankfurt, GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, Kansas State University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, University of Kassel, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1230266125, G1815137805, Dynamik photoionisationsinduzierter Prozesse in laserpräparierten Molekülen in der Gasphase und der wässrigen Phase, G222768804, STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF ATOMS, IONS, MOLECULES AND SURFACES, EXC 2056: CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter, G333714909, G3770966485, G3826261775, G440953257, G5631081224, G5648016710, G6033172293, G6244299968, Verbundprojekt: Strukturdynamik Chiraler Moleküle auf der Zeitskala von Elektronenbewegungen untersucht mit Freie-Elektronen Lasern (Bio-UCD-XFEL) - Teilvorhaben: Messkammer und Strukturdynamikuntersuchung am XFEL, ATOMIC PHYSICS WITH HIGHLY CHARGED IONS, Funktionale Photoschalter bei Zimmertemperatur: Fernsteuerung metallischer elektronischer und Spinänderungen mittels Ligandendynamik, G8433356701, STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF ATOMS, IONS, MOLECULES AND SURFACES
OpenAlex ID: W4413045819