Ultra-cooling gives slow-mo view of quantum physics
By cooling atoms to ultra-cold temperatures, researchers can watch interactions in slow motion and the results are giving them a new perspective into the behaviour of matter at the quantum level.
The closer you look at something, the more strangely it behaves. The smallest known particles, such as photons and electrons, follow their own rules of behaviour described as quantum physics.
Now, scientists are developing ways of watching these tiny particles in slow motion, opening a new window into this mysterious world. Understanding more about quantum behaviour has applications as diverse as high speed computing and better solar cells.
At the atomic level, heat is nothing more than the extent by which atoms move. The heat in a scalding cup of coffee is actually caused by the atoms that make up the drink moving, spinning, or shaking at a faster rate than the comparatively slower atoms in a cold coffee.
Atoms will move less as the environment becomes colder, coming to a complete standstill at absolute zero (0° Kelvin, or -273.25° Celsius).
The UQUAM project, funded by the EU's European Research Council (ERC), cools atoms to near this temperature in order to see how they behave and how we may control these near-still atoms.
'Ultra-cold atoms give you a big advantage in that they give you amazing control over interactions and the measurements you make on the system,' said Professor Ehud Altman, one of four principal investigators in the project.
'Everything evolves in time slowly and you can really watch the evolution in real time, you can measure things in a more detailed way than you can measure with any other system,' he said.
Prof. Altman heads a theoretical research group at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. The group focuses on theoretical aspects of ultra-cold atoms which can be tested in UQUAM's experimental centres in Germany and France.
Since ultra-cold atoms can be controlled and monitored better, Prof. Altman believes they can answer questions about how atoms behave at the border of everyday and quantum physics.
'Questions, for example, of whether when one does an experiment at increasingly long time, (do) the quantum effects decay or survive in this system?' he said.
The process of ultra-cooling atoms is usually done in two main ways, laser cooling, which uses lasers to slow down an atom, and evaporative cooling, which traps atoms in an electromagnetic 'jar' which helps atoms to shed their energy.
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