quantum mechanics tagged posts

Amid the many mysteries of quantum physics, subatomic particles don’t always follow the rules of the physical world. They can exist in two places at once, pass through solid barriers and even communicate across vast distances instantaneously. These behaviors may seem impossible, but in the quantum realm, scientists are exploring an array of properties once thought impossible.

In a new study, physicists at Brown University have now observed a novel class of quantum particles called fractional excitons, which behave in unexpected ways and could significantly expand scientists’ understanding of the quantum realm.

“Our findings point toward an entirely new class of quantum pa...

Students learning quantum mechanics are taught the Schrodinger equation and how to solve it to obtain a wave function. But a crucial step is skipped because it has puzzled scientists since the earliest days—how does the real, classical world emerge from, often, a large number of solutions for the wave functions?

Each of these wave functions has its individual shape and associated energy level, but how does the wave function “collapse” into what we see as the classical world—atoms, cats and the pool noodles floating in the tepid swimming pool of a seedy hotel in Las Vegas hosting a convention of hungover businessmen trying to sell the world a better mousetrap?

At a high level, this is handled by the “Born rule”—the postulate that the probability density for finding an object ...

The technique leverages quantum properties of light to guarantee security while preserving the accuracy of a deep-learning model. Researchers developed a technique guaranteeing that data remain secure during multiparty, cloud-based computation. This method, which leverages the quantum properties of light, could enable organizations like hospitals or financial companies to use deep learning to securely analyze confidential patient or customer data.

Deep-learning models are being used in many fields, from health care diagnostics to financi...

Physicists led by Roland Wester of the University of Innsbruck have now for the first time observed a quantum mechanical tunneling reaction in experiments. The observation can also be described exactly in theory. With the study published in Nature, the scientists provide an important reference for this fundamental effect in chemistry. It is the slowest reaction with charged particles ever observed.

Tunneling reactions in chemistry are very difficult to predict. The quantum mechanically exact description of chemical reactions with more than three particles is difficult, with more than four particles it is almost impossible. Theorists simulate these reactions with classical physics and must neglect quantum effects...