Matter wave diffraction from an inclined transmission grating: searching for the elusive 4He trimer Efimov state

The size of the helium trimer is determined by diffracting a beam of 4He clusters from a 100 nm period grating inclined by 21 degrees. Because of the bar thickness the projected slit width is roughly halved to 27 nm, increasing the sensitivity to the trimer size. The peak intensities measured out to the eighth order are evaluated via a few-body scattering theory. The trimer pair distance is found to be (r) = 1.1(+0.4)(-0.5) nm in agreement with predictions for the ground state. No evidence for a significant amount of Efimov trimers is found. Their concentration is estimated to be under 6%, less than expected.