quantum mechanics tagged posts

The spin of the blue atoms differs from that of the red atoms. The laser beam shown in red thus only holds the red atoms, while the blue ones can be transported by the differently polarized laser beam to any position. (Image: Carsten Robens/Uni Bonn)

Physicists at the University of Bonn have cleared a further hurdle on the path to creating quantum computers: in a recent study, they present a method with which they can very quickly and precisely sort large numbers of atoms. Imagine you are standing in a grocery store buying apple juice. Unfortunately, all of the crates are half empty because other customers have removed individual bottles at random. So you carefully fill your crate bottle by bottle...

#Image1: What would happen if you threw an iceberg into the sun? Surprising as it may seem, physicists still aren’t sure. (Image: NASA/SDO/AIA, NASA/STEREO, SOHO/ESA/NASA) #Image2: It may come as a surprise that temperature and voltage, basic notions developed in the 19th century, have until now lacked a mathematically rigorous definition, except for the case of an idealized equilibrium that does not actually occur in nature. The results of this study show that the two are intricately linked and could lead to a better understanding of what it means to be ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ at the subatomic and quantum scale. (Image: Charles Stafford/Abhay Shastry/UA)

If you thought that a kid’s room, a Norwegian Nobel Laureate and a laser pointer had nothing in common, 2 UA physicists are about to enlighten y...

Just as the hypothetical Schroedinger’s Cat is alive and dead at the same time, molecules hit with a burst of laser light exist in two states at once – excited (top) and unexcited. This weird quantum property allowed scientists at SLAC to make a molecular movie of excited iodine atoms in unprecedented detail. Credit: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Scientists have known for a long time that an atom or molecule can also be in2 different states at once. Now researchers at the Stanford PULSE Institute and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have exploited this Schroedinger’s Cat behavior to create Xray movies of atomic motion with much more detail than ever before...

Two become one: various diffraction patterns showing Rayleigh’s criterion

A team of researchers with the National University of Singapore has found a way to get around what they describe as ‘Rayleigh’s curse’—a phenomenon that happens when 2 light sources appear to coalesce as they grow closer together, limiting ability to measure the distance between them.

For many years, scientists working in a variety of fields studying the stars through a telescope or objects through a microscope have been limited by the same problem—diffraction interfering with light sources that are very close together—the wave-like nature of light causes spreading, which in turn can cause an overlap of photons striking a surface meant to be used to measure the difference between two sources.

Back in the late 1...