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The Standard Models of particle physics and cosmology don’t add up to all there is. What might be the next giant leap forward?

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The collapse of a trapped ultracold magnetic gas is arrested by quantum fluctuations, creating quantum droplets of superfluid atoms.

Macroscopic implosions of quantum matter waves have now been halted by quantum fluctuations. The quantum wave in question is an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a quantum state with thousands to tens of millions of atoms in an ultracold gas all sharing the same macroscopic wave function. Attractive atomic interactions can cause BECs to collapse in spectacular ways, in what’s been termed a “bosenova,” a lighthearted allusion to a supernova explosion [1]. Tilman Pfau and colleagues from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, have shown that for BECs made of dysprosium, whose bosonic isotopes are among the most magnetic atoms in the periodic table, long-range dipole-dipole interactions between these neutral atoms create a totally new phenomenon: the arrested collapse of a quantum magnetic fluid, called a quantum ferrofluid [2, 3]. Such a ferrofluid relies crucially on the strong dipolar interactions in the dysprosium gas.

Finally, some well deserved recogonition to Argonne Natl. Labs in their efforts on QC with the Univ. Of Chicago.

If biochemists had access to a quantum computer, they could perfectly simulate the properties of new molecules to develop novel drugs in ways that would take the fastest existing computers decades.

Electrons represent an ideal quantum bit, with a “spin” that when pointing up can represent a 0 and down can represent a 1. Such bits are small—even smaller than an atom—and because they do not interact strongly, they can remain quantum for long periods. However, exploiting electrons as qubits also poses a challenge because they must be trapped and manipulated. Which is exactly what David Schuster, assistant professor of physics, and his collaborators at UChicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Yale University have done.

Continue reading “New device steps toward isolating single electrons for quantum computing” »

Princeton’s answer to Quantum friction.

Abstract: Theoretical chemists at Princeton University have pioneered a strategy for modeling quantum friction, or how a particle’s environment drags on it, a vexing problem in quantum mechanics since the birth of the field. The study was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

“It was truly a most challenging research project in terms of technical details and the need to draw upon new ideas,” said Denys Bondar, a research scholar in the Rabitz lab and corresponding author on the work.

Quantum friction may operate at the smallest scale, but its consequences can be observed in everyday life. For example, when fluorescent molecules are excited by light, it’s because of quantum friction that the atoms are returned to rest, releasing photons that we see as fluorescence. Realistically modeling this phenomenon has stumped scientists for almost a century and recently has gained even more attention due to its relevance to quantum computing.

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with members from several institutions in the U.S. and one in Germany has proposed the idea of using an extremely small compass needle to build an ultrasensitive magnetometer. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters, the team describes their idea and the possibility of such a device actually being built.

Current magnetometers are very sensitive, able to detect levels of magnetism that are approximately a trillion times less than that of the Earth’s magnetic field. They achieve this feat by taking advantage of the wobble that occurs when an atom is placed in a magnetic field—such magnetometers are made by placing cells of atomic gas in a magnetic field, the wobbles of the atoms are averaged to arrive at a single measurement. In this new effort, the researchers suggest that a new way to measure magnetic fields could be perhaps as much as 1000 times more sensitive.

The idea behind the still theoretically magnetometer comes from the way a compass needle works—instead of wobbling when exposed to a magnetic field, it simply lines up—at least when viewed from a distance. The researchers have shown that such needles do actually wobble like atoms, when they are very small and placed in a very weak magnetic field. They envision a very tiny needle made of cobalt with all of its atoms aligned in a single direction. When the needed is placed in a weak magnetic field, the angular momentum of the rotation of the needle would be a lot smaller than its intrinsic spin angular momentum, which means it would precess, very much like single atoms do. Measuring the precess then would offer a means of measuring the level of magnetism.

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A tool able to generate remote forces would allow us to handle dangerous or fragile materials without contact or occlusions. Acoustic levitation is a suitable technology since it can trap particles in air or water. However, no approach has tried to endow humans with an intertwined way of controlling it. Previously, the acoustic elements were static, had to surround the particles and only translation was possible. Here, we present the basic manoeuvres that can be performed when levitators are attached to our moving hands. A Gauntlet of Levitation and a Sonic Screwdriver are presented with their manoeuvres for capturing, moving, transferring and combining particles. Manoeuvres can be performed manually or assisted by a computer for repeating patterns, stabilization and enhanced accuracy or speed. The presented prototypes still have limited forces but symbolize a milestone in our expectations of future technology.

Theoretical chemists at Princeton University have pioneered a strategy for modeling quantum friction, or how a particle’s environment drags on it, a vexing problem in quantum mechanics since the birth of the field. The study was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (“Wigner–Lindblad Equations for Quantum Friction”). “It was truly a most challenging research project in terms of technical details and the need to draw upon new ideas,” said Denys Bondar, a research scholar in the Rabitz lab and corresponding author on the work.

Researchers construct a quantum counterpart of classical friction, a velocity-dependent force acting against the direction of motion. In particular, a translationary invariant Lindblad equation is derived satisfying the appropriate dynamical relations for the coordinate and momentum (i.e., the Ehrenfest equations). Numerical simulations establish that the model approximately equilibrates. (© ACS)

Continue reading “Theorists smooth the way to modeling quantum friction” »

A new form of light has been discovered by physicists from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics and the CRANN Institute, Trinity College, which will impact our understanding of the fundamental nature of light.

One of the measurable characteristics of a beam of light is known as angular momentum, The Spectrum reports. Until now, it was thought that in all forms of light the angular momentum would be a multiple of Planck’s constant (the physical constant that sets the scale of quantum effects).

Now, recent PhD graduate Kyle Ballantine and Professor Paul Eastham, both from Trinity College Dublin’s School of Physics, along with Professor John Donegan from CRANN, have demonstrated a new form of light where the angular momentum of each photon (a particle of visible light) takes only half of this value. This difference, though small, is profound. These results were recently published in the online journal Science Advances.