In 1951, physicist Julian Schwinger theorized that by applying a uniform electrical field to a vacuum, electron-positron pairs would be spontaneously created out of nothing, through a phenomenon called quantum tunneling.
The problem with turning the matter-out-of-nowhere theory into Star Trek replicators or transporters? Enormously high electric fields would be required—far beyond the limits of any direct physical experiments.
As a result, the aptly-named Schwinger effect has never been seen.
Now theoretical physicists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have described a parallel effect in a more manageable system. In their model, they substitute a thin film of superfluid helium for the vacuum, and the background flow of the superfluid for the massive electrical field.
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