单光子原子分选：用Maxwell's Demon分离同位素
Single Photon Atomic Sorting: Isotope Separation with Maxwell's Demon
摘要：
同位素分离是现代社会面临的重大挑战之一，在基础科学、医学、能源和国防领域具有巨大潜力。我们在这里考虑一个新的和一般的同位素分离方法。该方法基于原子束中特定同位素的质量与磁矩比的不可逆变化，随后是磁性多极，其梯度偏转并引导原子。其基本机制是通过每个被分离的原子的单散射光子的信息来减少光束的熵。我们数值模拟同位素分离的一系列例子，包括锂，我们描述了我们目前正在建设的实验装置。其他例子的模拟表明，这种技术的一般适用性，几乎整个周期表。我们表明，该过程的效率仅受可用激光功率的限制，因为平均一个光子可以分离一个原子。所提出的方法的实际重要性在于，大规模同位素分离应该是可能的，使用普通的廉价磁体和现有的超声束和激光技术。
英文摘要：
Isotope separation is one of the grand challenges of modern society and holds great potential for basic science, medicine, energy, and defense. We consider here a new and general approach to isotope separation. The method is based on an irreversible change of the mass-to-magnetic moment ratio of a particular isotope in an atomic beam, followed by a magnetic multipole whose gradients deflect and guide the atoms. The underlying mechanism is a reduction of the entropy of the beam by the information of a single-scattered photon for each atom that is separated. We numerically simulate isotope separation for a range of examples, including lithium, for which we describe the experimental setup we are currently constructing. Simulations of other examples demonstrate this technique's general applicability to almost the entire periodic table. We show that the efficiency of the process is only limited by the available laser power, since one photon on average enables the separation of one atom. The practical importance of the proposed method is that large-scale isotope separation should be possible, using ordinary inexpensive magnets and the existing technologies of supersonic beams and lasers.
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