MEASUREMENT OF THE PROTON WAVE-FUNCTION IN MOLECULAR-HYDROGEN BY NEUTRON COMPTON-SCATTERING

The momentum distribution of the proton in liquid and solid hydrogen h as been measured by neutron Compton scattering (NCS), at energy transf ers between 3 and 50 eV. The data display features due to interference between the proton and neutron wave functions and are accurately desc ribed by a simple quantum mechanical model, incorporating previous spe ctroscopic data. The excellent agreement between calculation and data in this simple system demonstrates that the NCS technique can provide accurate information about the behavior of the proton in condensed mat ter. There are many applications of NCS to more complex physical syste ms of fundamental interest in physics, chemistry, and biology.