Diffraction of diatomic molecules from a lattice with coupling to the internal excited vibrational state

Abstract

Matter wave diffraction of diatomic molecules from a lattice of grids is considered with the energy exchange with the internal excited vibrational states of the molecules. The energy exchange leads, in general, to a shift in the matter wave fringes, reminiscent of the Aharonov-Bohm shift, with the important difference that it is independent of ^ħ , while the AB shift involves ^ħ . When the interference is considered strictly to be one-dimensional, then the phase difference describing the shift is the sole nonzero phase difference and describes a macroscopic interference with a mesoscopic wave length which is independent of ^ħ.