quantum mechanics tagged posts

#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...

Hologram of a single photon: reconstructed from raw measurements (left) and theoretically predicted (right). Credit: Source: FUW

Until quite recently, creating a hologram of a single photon was believed to be impossible due to fundamental laws of physics. However, scientists at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, have successfully applied concepts of classical holography to the world of quantum phenomena. A new measurement technique has enabled them to register the first ever hologram of a single light particle, thereby shedding new light on the foundations of quantum mechanics. “We performed a relatively simple experiment to measure and view something incredibly difficult to observe: the shape of wavefronts of a single photon,” says Dr. Chrapkiewicz.

In standard photography, ind...