- 4474 - ATOMS - have wave particle duality? - Atoms squished closer together than ever before, revealing seemingly impossible “quantum effects”. Using a laser technique, scientists have squished pairs of atoms closer together than ever before, revealing some truly mind-boggling quantum effects.
------------------------------- 4474
- ATOMS
- have wave particle duality?
-
- Scientists have two atoms interacting at an
extremely close separation. They pushed layers of atoms 10 times closer
together than in any previous experiment, resulting in odd quantum effects.
-
- The squished two layers of ultracold
magnetic atoms are within 50 nanometers of each other. This is 10 times closer than in previous
experiments. It revealing bizarre
quantum effects not seen before.
-
- The extreme proximity of these atoms will
allow researchers to study quantum interactions at this length scale for the
first time and could lead to important advances in the development of
superconductors and quantum computers.
-
- Unusual quantum behaviors begin to emerge
at ultracold temperatures as the atoms are forced to occupy their lowest
possible energy state. In the nanokelvin
regime, there's a type of matter called “Bose Einstein condensate” in which all
the particles behave like waves. They are basically quantum mechanical objects.
-
- Interactions between these isolated systems
are particularly important for understanding quantum phenomena such as
superconductivity and superradiance. But the strength of these interactions
typically depends on the separation distance, which can create practical
problems for researchers studying these effects; their experiments are limited
by how close they can get the atoms.
-
- Most atoms used in cold experiments, such
as the alkali metals, have to have contact in order to interact. We're interested in 'dysprosium atoms'
which are special in that they can interact with each other at long range
through dipole-dipole interactions weak attractive forces between partial
charges on adjacent atoms. But although
there's this long-range interaction, there are still some types of quantum
phenomena that cannot be realized because this dipole interaction is so weak.
-
- Bringing cold atoms into close proximity
while maintaining control of their quantum states is a significant challenge,
and until now, experimental limitations have prevented researchers from fully
testing theoretical predictions about the effects of these quantum
interactions.
-
- For the first time ever, physicists have
captured a clear image of individual atoms behaving like a wave. The image shows sharp red dots of fluorescing
atoms transforming into fuzzy blobs of wave packets and is a stunning demonstration
of the idea that atoms exist as both particles and waves one of the
cornerstones of quantum mechanics.
-
- The wave nature of matter remains one of
the most striking aspects of quantum mechanics. First proposed by the French
physicist Louis de Broglie in 1924 and expanded upon by Erwin Schrödinger two
years later, “wave particle duality” states that all quantum-sized objects, and
therefore all matter, exists as both particles and waves at the same time. Schrödinger's famous equation is typically
interpreted by physicists as stating that atoms exist as packets of wave-like
probability in space, which are then collapsed into discrete particles upon
observation. While bafflingly counterintuitive, this bizarre property of the
quantum world has been witnessed in numerous experiments.
-
- To image this fuzzy duality, the physicists
first cooled lithium atoms to near-absolute zero temperatures by bombarding
them with photons, or light particles, from a laser to rob them of their
momentum. Once the atoms were cooled, more lasers trapped them within an
optical lattice as discrete packets.
-
- With the atoms cooled and confined, the
researchers periodically switched the optical lattice off and on expanding the
atoms from a confined near-particle state to one resembling a wave, and then
back.
-
- A microscope camera recorded light emitted
by atoms in the particle state at two different times, with atoms behaving like
waves in between. By putting together many images, the authors built up the
shape of this wave and observed how it expands with time, in perfect agreement
with Schrödinger's equation
-
- This imaging method consists in turning back
on the lattice to project each wave packet into a single well to turn them into
a particle again. It is not a wave anymore.
-
- The scientists say this image is just a
simple demonstration. Their next step will be using it to study systems of
strongly interacting atoms that are less well understood. Studying such systems could improve our
understanding of strange states of matter, such as those found in the core of
extremely dense neutron stars, or the quark-gluon plasma that is believed to
have existed shortly after the Big Bang.
-
-
May 20, 2024 ATOMS
- have wave particle
duality? 4474
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