Tuesday, November 22, 2016

nuclear physics - Gamma Ray LASER Theory and Technology


I am aware that a similar question has been asked by someone else in the past, but in a very general form. Due to the physics interest and technology, in this question I put emphasis on the detail of the physics part and the question becomes very specific.


We know the power of visible-light-laser and the effects it can have on matter: Industry, Medicine, Military, Entertainment and many other applications.


Given the large amount of energy of $\gamma$-photons, one can extrapolate and see the new applications of LASER designed to amplify $\gamma$-light, emitted by nuclear isomers, which might be called “GLASER” (gamma light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).


The trick is to excite nuclei to a metastable state, to achieve “population inversion” and then stimulate them to decay simultaneously. The excitation can be achieved either by soft neutron bombardment or by synchrotron irradiation, in order to excite the nuclei into an angular momentum state that does not match the one of the ground state. These nuclei can remain at that state for sufficiently long time, so population inversion can be achieved.



QUESTION:


How can the nuclei be stimulated to decay and emit their $\gamma$-photon so that to achieve GLASER? This could depend on how the nuclei are excited in their isomeric states to begin with.




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