Vacuum fluctuations may be thought of as a flickering of the quantum light field even in total darkness. The positive (red) and negative (blue) regions are randomly distributed in space and they change constantly at high speed — similar to black-and-white noise on a TV screen with no signal input. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Konstanz
What are the properties of the vacuum, the absolute nothingness? So far, physicists have assumed that it is impossible to directly access the characteristics of the ground state of empty space. Now, a team of physicists has succeeded in doing just that. They demonstrated a first direct observation of the so-called vacuum fluctuations by using short light pulses while employing highly precise optical measurement techniques.
The duration of their lig...
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