The solvation of a Ba+ ion created by photoionization of neutral Barium at the surface of a 4He nanodroplet leads to the nucleation of a quantized ring vortex. In a recent work David Mateo et al. suggested that this may happen in alkali metals, too. In the ground state alkali metals sit in a dimple like structure on the droplet surface, but after ionization the potential is strongly attractive and they get sucked up to a so called snowball.
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