# Bremsstrahlung radiation by a tunneling particle

## Abstract

We study the bremsstrahlung radiation of a tunneling charged particle in a time-dependent picture. In particular, we treat the case of bremsstrahlung during alpha-decay, which has been suggested as a promissing tool to investigate the problem of tunneling times. We show deviations of the numerical results from the semiclassical estimates. A standard assumption of a preformed particle inside the well leads to sharp high-frequency lines in the bremsstrahlung emission. These lines correspond to “quantum beats” of the internal part of the wavefunction during tunneling arising from the interference of the neighboring resonances in the well.

Recent experiments  have triggered a great interest in the phenomena of bremsstrahlung during tunneling processes which was discussed from different theoretical viewpoints in . This can shed light on basic and still controversial quantum-mechanical problems of tunneling times , especially in a complex and nonstationary environment. It seems that $`\alpha `$-decay offers a unique possibility to study these fundamental questions. In ref.  it was claimed that the bremsstrahlung spectrum in alpha-decay of <sup>210</sup>Po could provide information about the tunneling time. Their claim is based on the comparison of the experimental spectra with a semiclassical calculation of Dyakonov and Gornyi , which shows an interference pattern arising from the contributions to bremsstrahlung from the inner, under the barrier, and outer parts of the wave function. Papenbrock and Bertsch  performed a quantum-mechanical calculation for the bremsstrahlung in $`\alpha `$-decay in perturbation theory. They have shown that the contribution from the tunneling wave function under the barrier is small, as well as the appearance of interference effects in the spectrum. The greater effect, as expected, arises from the Coulomb acceleration of the $`\alpha `$-particle outside the nuclear well. Later, Takigawa et al.  compared the quantum-mechanical calculations with classical and semiclassical results. They conclude that subtle interferences of contributions from different parts of the wave function do indeed arise. However, in both cases, the authors infer that the experimental data are not conclusive. More exclusive experiments, with better statistics, are needed to give a clearer understanding of the phenomena.

The theoretical approaches of refs.  assume a standard stationary description of quantum tunneling which is very successful for $`\alpha `$-decay lifetime and probabilities. However, a time dependent picture of a decay process  may be essential in understanding physics of the bremsstrahlung and similar processes, in particular in obtaining the appropriate bremsstrahlung spectrum. This can be shown, for example, by looking into a case where there is no Coulomb acceleration after the tunneling. In this letter we model the time evolution of the wave function during the tunneling using again $`\alpha `$-decay as an example. We do not attempt to compare our results with the experimental data. The reason is simple: the $`\alpha `$-decay time, e.g., the lifetime of <sup>210</sup>Po, is many orders of magnitude larger than typical times for an $`\alpha `$-particle to traverse across the nucleus. This implies that a stable numerical solution of the Schrödinger equation, keeping track simultaneously of fast oscillations in the well (“escape attempts”) and extremely slow tunneling, is virtually impossible: for <sup>210</sup>Po it would require about $`10^{30}`$ time steps in the iteration process. Instead, we study the bremsstrahlung in high energy $`\alpha `$-decays, for which the decay time is treatable numerically. This allows us to pay attention to qualitatively new aspects of the bremsstrahlung in decay processes, and compare with traditional aproaches.

For an $`\alpha `$-particle being accelerated from the turning point to infinity, the classical bremsstrahlung can be calculated analytically. Using the well known equations, see for example , and integrating along the outward branch of the Rutherford trajectory in a head-on collision we get for the energy emitted by bremsstrahlung per frequency interval $`d\omega `$, in the long-wavelength approximation,

$$dE\left(\omega \right)=\frac{8\pi \omega ^2}{3m^2c^3}Z_{eff}^2e^2\left|p_r\left(\omega \right)\right|^2.$$
(1)   
where

$$p_r\left(\omega \right)=\frac{ma}{2\pi }e^{\pi \nu /2}K_{i\nu }^{}\left(\nu \right)$$
(2)   
is the Fourier transform of the particle momentum, $`m=m_N4A/(A+4)`$ is the reduced mass, and $`Z_{eff}=\left(2A4Z\right)/(A+4)`$ is the effective charge of the alpha-particle + the daughter nucleus $`(A,Z)`$ in the dipole approximation. In eq. (1), $`p_r=𝐩\widehat{𝐫}`$, $`a=Ze^2/E_\alpha `$, $`\nu =E_\alpha a/\mathrm{}\mathrm{v}_0`$, $`E_\alpha `$ is the energy of the alpha-particle, and $`\mathrm{v}_0`$ its asymptotic velocity. The functions $`K_{i\nu }\left(x\right)`$ are the modified Bessel functions of imaginary order, and $`K_{i\nu }^{}\left(x\right)`$ are their derivatives with respect to the argument. Dividing this equation by the photon energy $`E_\gamma =\mathrm{}\omega `$, we get the differential probability per unit energy for the bremsstrahlung, i.e., $`dP/dE_\gamma =\left(1/E_\gamma \right)dE\left(\omega \right)/dE_\gamma `$.

At low photon energies, we use the relation $`\nu ^2e^{\pi \nu }\left[K_{i\nu }^{}\left(\nu \right)\right]^21`$ to show that

$$\frac{dP}{dE_\gamma }=\frac{2}{3\pi }\frac{1}{E_\gamma }Z_{eff}^2\alpha \left(\frac{\mathrm{v}_0}{c}\right)^2.$$
(3)   
We solve the time dependent Schrödinger equation for the alpha-particle in a potential well + a Coulomb barrier, and calculate the radial momentum from

$$p_r\left(t\right)=\frac{\mathrm{}}{i}𝑑ru^{}(r,t)\frac{u(r,t)}{r},$$
(4)   
where $`u(r,t)`$ is the radial part of the total wavefunction. A similar numerical study of the time evolution for the problem of the $`\alpha `$-decay was performed by Serot et al. .

The time-dependent Schrödinger equation is solved, starting with an $`s`$-wave wavefunction for an alpha particle confined in a radial well $`V\left(r\right)=V_0`$ for $`r<R_0`$, and $`V\left(r\right)=V_0+2Ze^2/R_0`$ for $`rR_0`$. We set $`R_0=8.75`$ fm, realistic for the $`\alpha +^{210}`$Po case . At $`t=0`$ we switch the potential to a spherical square well with depth $`V_0`$ for $`r<R_0`$ and a Coulomb potential $`2Ze^2/r`$ for $`rR_0`$ which triggers the tunneling. At a given time $`t`$ the wave function is found by using the standard method of inversion of a tri-diagonal matrix at each time step increment $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ (see, e.g. ref. ).The space is discretized in steps of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x=0.05`$ fm, and the time step used is $`\mathrm{\Delta }t=mc\left(\mathrm{\Delta }x\right)^2/\mathrm{}`$. In Fig. 1 we plot the average momentum for $`\alpha `$-energies of 23.1 MeV (1a) and 20 MeV (1b). The $`\alpha `$-energies are changed by keeping the number of nodes constant (in this case, 7 nodes), and varying the depth of the potential from 14 to 18 MeV, respectively. The barrier height is 27.6 MeV. The dotted line is the classical momentum for an $`\alpha `$-particle running away from the closest approach distance. The dashed line is the average momentum calculated according to eq. (4), but using only the part of the wave function outside the barrier, i.e. the integral in (4) extending from $`R_{cl}=`$ $`2Ze^2/E_\alpha `$ to infinity. In this case, the wave function entering (4) is normalized within this space range.

The resulting “quantum-mechanical” momentum at the later stage is closer to the classical one. However, the quantum-mechanical momentum increases slower than the classical one, due to the extended nature of the particle’s wave function. As a consequence, one expects that the Fourier transform of the quantum momentum has its higher frequencies suppressed, as compared to the classical case. The solid line represents the momentum calculated according to (4), but including the full space range of the wavefunction. One observes a wiggling pattern associated with the interference of neighboring quasistationary states of the particle inside the nucleus. The leaking of the inner part of the wave function creates an effective oscillating dipole, which emits radiation. The same leaking creates the perturbation mixing different resonance states. The Fourier transform of the particle momentum should therefore contain appreciable amplitudes associated with this motion, as observed in Fig. 2, solid line. Asymptotically, the momenta calculated in all different ways coincide at large times.

In Fig. 2 the dotted lines show the classical bremsstrahlung emission probability, the dashed lines show the “quantum-mechanical” momentum using only the part of the wave function outside the barrier, and the solid lines are for the full space range of the wave function, as a function of the photon momentum. The upper part of the graph is for $`E_\alpha =23.1`$ MeV, while the lower part is for $`E_\alpha =20`$ MeV. Since the quantum-mechanical momentum of the particle increases slower than the classical one, the spectrum at larger photon energies is suppressed in comparison with the classical one. Also, when one includes the whole wave function, the bremsstrahlung spectrum is even more suppressed at large photon energies. However, at very large photon energies ($`E_\gamma 8.5`$ MeV) the spectrum shows a peak, revealing the interference between the different components of the wave function in the well. The width $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ of the peak is related to the lifetime of the quasistationary state. For $`E_\alpha =23`$ MeV we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=0.2`$ MeV while for $`E_\alpha =20`$ MeV the width is narrow, $`\mathrm{\Delta }E=0.02`$ MeV. These values agree with the conventional Gamow formula for the width of the quasistationary state of the alpha-particle with the same energy and potential parameters.

In order to assess the relevance of the bremsstrahlung during tunneling and to shed light on the nature of the peaks in Fig. 2 we wil now consider an $`\alpha `$-particle confined within a three-dimensional square well with $`V=V_0`$ for $`r<R_0`$, $`V=U_0`$ for $`R_0<r<R_1`$, and $`V=0`$, otherwise. We use the parameters $`R_0=8.75`$ fm, $`R_1R_0=1`$ fm, $`V_0=14`$ MeV, $`U_0=27.6`$ MeV, and $`E_\alpha =24.2`$ MeV. For this problem a much simpler time-dependent solution can be found. The time-dependent wave function is obtained from the expansion

$$u(r,t)=𝑑Ea(E)e^{iEt/\mathrm{}}u_E(r),$$
(5)   
where $`u_E(r)`$ is the continuum (radial) wavefunction with energy $`E`$, normalized to $`4\pi 𝑑ru_E^{}(r)u_E^{}(r)=\delta \left(EE^{}\right)`$ and

$$a(E)=4\pi 𝑑ru_0(r)u_E(r),$$
(6)   
where $`u_0(r)`$ is the radial wavefunction of the initial state. For a square well plus barrier $`u_0(r),`$ $`u_E(r),`$ and $`a\left(E\right)`$ are given analytically. The time-dependent wavefunction is obtained from eq. (5) by a simple integration.

In Fig. 3(a) we plot the momentum of the particle for this system as a function of time. We observe a similar pattern as in Fig. 1(a), solid curve, but with stronger oscillations, due to the quantum beats. In Fig. 3(b) we show the corresponding bremsstrahlung spectrum. The resulting pattern is very similar to that displayed in Fig. 2. It is important to notice however that there is no Coulomb acceleration for this system. The lower part of the energy spectrum is solely due to the tunneling through the barrier, while the peak at higher energies is again due to the interference during the tunneling process.

We have compared the lower part of the spectrum in Fig. 3(b) with the result of Dyakonov and Gornyi . They have obtained the bremsstrahlung spectrum by a tunneling charge using perturbation theory and semiclassical wave functions for the initial and final state of the particle. We have done a similar calculation, but using the bound-state wave function $`u_0(r)`$ as the initial state. We obtained a bremsstrahlung spectrum for the soft part of the spectrum which is by far smaller than that displayed in Fig. 3(b). Moreover, the spectrum decays much faster than ours. This can be understood as follows. The soft part of the spectrum is due to the bremsstrahlung during tunneling. For a particle in a one-dimensional tunneling motion through a square barrier, Dyakonov and Gornyi’s approach yields the spectrum given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{dP}{dE_\gamma }}={\displaystyle \frac{4}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{U_0}{mc^2E_\gamma }}Z_{eff}^2\alpha \mathrm{exp}(2k_1d)\mathrm{exp}\left(2{\displaystyle \frac{E_\gamma d}{\mathrm{}\mathrm{v}_1}}\right)\left[1+\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{E_\gamma d}{\mathrm{}\mathrm{v}_1}}\right)\right]^2,`$ (7)   
(8)   
where $`U_0`$ is the barrier height, $`\mathrm{v}_1=\sqrt{2\left(U_0E_\alpha \right)/m}`$ is the imaginary velocity of the particle during tunneling, and $`d`$ is the barrier width.

This formula shows that the semiclassical bremsstrahlung spectrum of a tunneling particle varies as $`E_\gamma ^1`$ for low photon energies and as $`[\mathrm{exp}\left(2E_\gamma d/\mathrm{}\mathrm{v}_1\right)]/E_\gamma `$ for high photon energies. The slope parameter for high photon energies is given by $`2d/\mathrm{}\mathrm{v}_1`$ as displayed by a dashed line in Fig. 3(b). However, the spectrum obtained from the dynamical calculation, solid line in Fig. 3(b), has a smaller slope parameter. Besides, the spectrum shows pronounced peaks at large photon energies. Fig. 4, where we show the scattering phase shift for the system “well + barrier”, clarifies the origin of these peaks. The resonances at 15.7, 24.2 and 35.4 MeV correspond to (bound or virtual) levels in the well. The amplitudes of eq. (6) are presented in Fig. 4(b) where the resonance peaks are also evident. The peaks at 9.1 MeV and 11.1 MeV, shown in Fig. 3(b), are due to interference of resonances at 15.7 MeV and 35.4 MeV with the initial state of energy 24.2 MeV. The quantum beats apparently correspond to the energy differences ($`24.215.7=8.5`$) MeV and ($`35.424.2=11.2`$) MeV, respectively. These values are close to the energies of the peaks appearing in Fig. 3(b).

The bremsstrahlung peaks associated with quantum beats are present in any dynamical tunneling process, since an initial localized state always has some overlap amplitude with neighboring states of the open well. The importance of these peaks, or, equivalently, of admixture of neighboring resonances, decreases if the initial state is a very sharp resonance as in the case of the alpha-decay of <sup>210</sup>Po studied in . Until now it is poorly known how an alpha-particle is preformed inside a nucleus. However, the initial wave function must be of a localized nature, thus having a nonzero amplitude of carrying a part of the wave function of an adjacent resonance. For high-lying states, as shown above, this leads to the pronounced peaks in the bremsstrahlung spectrum. The observation of those peaks would be valuable for inferring the content of the initial wave function of a preformed alpha-particle (or fission products).

The coupling to the radiation field can also influence the tunneling process. Such effects require a fully quantum-mechanical approach which can be formulated as follows. In the one-photon approximation for a spinless particle, the Hamiltonian for the particle+photon system is given by

$$\widehat{H}=\widehat{H}_0(\widehat{𝐫},\widehat{𝐩})\frac{Z_{eff}e}{2mc}\widehat{𝐩}𝐀\left(\widehat{𝐫}\right)+\underset{𝐤,\lambda }{}\mathrm{}\omega _ka_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}a_{𝐤,\lambda },$$
(9)   
where $`a_{𝐤,\lambda }\left(a_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}\right)`$ is the annihilation (creation) operator of photons with momentum $`𝐤`$, and polarization $`\lambda =1,2`$. The middle term is the particle-photon interaction and the last term is the photon Hamiltonian. The electromagnetic field $`𝐀`$ is given by

$$𝐀(𝐫,t)=\underset{𝐤,\lambda }{}\sqrt{\frac{2\pi \mathrm{}c^2}{\omega V}}\left[a_{𝐤,\lambda }ϵ_{𝐤,\lambda }e^{i𝐤.𝐫i\omega t}+a_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}ϵ_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}e^{i𝐤.𝐫+i\omega t}\right],$$
(10)   
where $`V`$ is the normalization volume, and $`ϵ_{𝐤,\lambda }`$ are the polarization vectors. In the mixed representation a system is given by a function of r and the field is described in the occupation number picture. Again, in the one-photon approximation the system wave function can be written as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }_0(𝐫,t)|0+\underset{𝐤,\lambda }{}\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)}(𝐫,t)|𝐤,\lambda ,$$
(11)   
where $`|0`$ is the photon vacuum and $`|𝐤,\lambda =`$ $`a_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}|0`$ is the one-photon part. Inserting (9), (10) and (11) in the Schrödinger equation we get the set of coupled equations for $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0(𝐫,t)`$ and $`\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)}(𝐫,t)\right\}`$

$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_0}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{H}_0\mathrm{\Psi }_0+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤,\lambda }{}}g_{𝐤,\lambda }\left(\widehat{𝐩}ϵ_{𝐤,\lambda }\right)e^{i𝐤.𝐫}\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)},`$ (12)   
$`i\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)}}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\widehat{H}_0+\mathrm{}\omega _k\right)\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)}+{\displaystyle \underset{𝐤,\lambda }{}}g_{𝐤,\lambda }\left(\widehat{𝐩}ϵ_{𝐤,\lambda }^{}\right)e^{i𝐤.𝐫}\mathrm{\Psi }_0.`$ (13)   
where $`g_{𝐤,\lambda }`$ incorporates all factors which depend on $`(𝐤,\lambda )`$. The momentum operator $`\widehat{𝐩}`$ does not act on $`e^{i𝐤.𝐫}`$, since $`𝐤ϵ=0`$.

This approach goes back to the classical work by Pauli and Fierz . It includes important feedback effects which renormalize the particle trajectory by the coupling to the accompanying radiation field. The coupled equations are to be solved for each photon momentum k, and polarization $`\lambda `$, with the initial conditions $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0(𝐫,0)=\psi _0(𝐫)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝐤,\lambda }^{\left(1\right)}(𝐫,0)=0`$. By solving equations (13) a full solution for the particle wavefunction allows us to calculate the radiation spectrum. The exact solution of these equations is crucial in the case when the photon energy is comparable to the particle energy. For example, in the decay of very low energy alphas this coupling may reduce the yield of high energy photons. The reason is that when a particle emits a photon before tunneling, it looses energy and this leads to a reduction of its barrier tunneling probability. The exact results might be sensitive to the shape of the barrier. We hope to come to this formulation of the problem elsewhere.

In conclusion, we have obtained the bremsstrahlung spectrum of a tunneling particle (an $`\alpha `$-particle in a nucleus) by directly solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. As expected, we have found that there are large deviations from the classical bremsstrahlung spectrum. We have also seen that aproaches based on perturbation theory miss an important piece of information, namely, the time-dependent modification of the particle wavefunction in the well during the decay time. This leads to substantial emission of photons with frequencies close to those of quantum beats between neighboring resonances. This effect should be relevant in radiation emitted during $`\alpha `$-decay in nuclei. In a more general case, the time dependence of the wave function of a tunneling particle seems to deviate substantially from the spectrum calculated by using perturbation theory with semiclassical wave functions. More experimental data on bremsstrahlung by a tunneling particle would be very welcome for learning more about preformation states, dynamics of quantum beats, and tunneling times.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Brazilian funding agencies CNPq, FAPERJ, FUJB/UFRJ, and PRONEX, under contract 41.96.0886.00, and by the NSF grant 96-05207.

Figure Captions

Fig. 1 - Average momentum (in MeV/$`c`$) for $`\alpha `$-energies of 23.1 MeV (a) and 20 MeV (b). In (a) the dotted line is the classical momentum for an $`\alpha `$-particle running away from the closest approach distance. The dashed line is the average momentum calculated according to eq. (4), but using only the part of the wavefunction outside the barrier, i.e., the integral in (4) extending from $`R_{cl}=`$ $`2Ze^2/E_\alpha `$ to infinity. The solid line represents the momentum calculated according to (4), but including the full space range of the wavefunction.

Fig. 2 - Classical bremsstrahlung emission probability (dotted lines), quantum-mechanical spectrum (dashed lines) using only the part of the wave function outside the barrier, and using the full space wave function (solid lines). The upper part of the graph is for $`E_\alpha =23.1`$ MeV, while the lower part is for $`E_\alpha =20`$ MeV.

Fig. 3 - (a) Momentum (in MeV/$`c`$) of a particle in a square well plus barrier as a function of time. (b) Corresponding bremsstrahlung spectrum.

Fig 4 - (a) Phase-shifts ($`l=0`$) for the $`\alpha +^{210}`$Po system, assuming a radial square-well of 8.75 fm size + a square barrier of 1 fm located at the border of the well. (b) Amplitudes for the overlap of the initial state ($`E=24.2`$ MeV) of the closed well (barrier of infinitely large width) with neighboring states of the open well.