Atoms Morph into Quantum Waves

In the 1920s, the pioneering physicist Erwin Schrödinger formulated an equation that fundamentally transformed our understanding of the universe. Schrödinger's equation describes how particles can behave like waves, a concept that underpins much of quantum mechanics. 

Now, nearly a century later, researchers have made a remarkable advancement that perfectly recreates Schrödinger's predictions in the laboratory: capturing single atoms morphing into quantum waves.

A Historic Moment in Quantum Imaging
The recent breakthrough involves capturing images of individual atoms exhibiting wave-like behavior. This is a historic achievement, as it provides the clearest image ever seen of atoms behaving like quantum waves, just as predicted by Schrödinger's equation. 

This discovery opens up exciting possibilities for studying and understanding the exotic and often mysterious behavior of atoms at the quantum level.  READ MORE...

Defining Our Physical Universe

On the smallest of physical scales, we have the fundamental, elementary particles, which build up to assemble nuclei, atoms, molecules, and even larger structures. 

On larger scales, we have planets, stars, stellar systems, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and vast voids between them, all contributing to the enormous cosmic web.

Overall, there are many different scales to view the Universe on. Here's the grand cosmic tour, from the extremely tiny to the unfathomably large.



Our Universe spans from subatomic to cosmic scales.
The journey from macroscopic scales down to subatomic ones spans many orders of magnitude, but going down in small steps can make each new one more accessible from the previous one. Humans are made of organs, cells, organelles, molecules, atoms, then electrons and nuclei, then protons and neutrons, and then quarks and gluons inside of them. This is the limit to how far we’ve ever probed nature.Credit: Magdalena Kowalska/CERN/ISOLDE team

All told, 13 different scales are presently known.
On the right, the gauge bosons, which mediate the three fundamental quantum forces of our Universe, are illustrated. There is only one photon to mediate the electromagnetic force, there are three bosons mediating the weak force, and eight mediating the strong force. This suggests that the Standard Model is a combination of three groups: U(1), SU(2), and SU(3), whose interactions and particles combine to make up everything known in existence. With gravity thrown into the mix, there are a total of 26 fundamental constants required to explain our Universe, with four big questions still awaiting explanation.Credit: Daniel Domingues/CERN

1.) Fundamental, elementary particles. Down to 10-19 meters, these quanta have never been divided.
When two protons, each one made of three quarks held together by gluons, overlap, it’s possible that they can fuse together into a composite state dependent on their properties. The most common, stable possibility is to produce a deuteron, made of a proton and a neutron, which requires the emission of a neutrino, a positron, and possibly a photon as well.Credit: Keiko Murano

2.) Nuclear scales. On femtometer (~10-15 m) scales, individual nucleons, composed of quarks and gluons, bind together.
Although you yourself are made of atoms, what you experience as “touch” doesn’t necessarily require another, external atom to come in actual overlapping contact with the atoms in your body. Simply getting close enough to exert a force is not only enough, it’s what most commonly occurs.        READ MORE...

Hybrid Atomic Quantum Computers

Left: A hybrid array of cesium atoms (yellow) and rubidium atoms (blue). Right: The customizability of the researchers' technique enables them to place the atoms anywhere, allowing them to create this image of Chicago landmarks Willis Tower and the Cloud Gate. The scale bar in both images is 10 micrometers. Credit: Hannes Bernien

Qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, can be made from many different technologies. One way to make a qubit is to trap a single neutral atom in place using a focused laser, a technique that won the Nobel Prize in 2018.


But to make a quantum computer out of neutral atom qubits, many individual atoms must be trapped in place by many laser beams. So far, these arrays have only been constructed from atoms of a single element, out of concern that making an array out of two elements would be prohibitively complex.

But for the first time, University of Chicago researchers have created a hybrid array of neutral atoms from two different elements, significantly broadening the system's potential applications in quantum technology. The results were funded in part by the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute Hybrid Quantum Architectures and Networks (HQAN), and published in Physical Review X.

"There have been many examples of quantum technology that have taken a hybrid approach," said Hannes Bernien, lead researcher of the project and assistant professor in University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. "But they have not been developed yet for these neutral atom platforms. We are very excited to see that our results have triggered a very positive response from the community, and that new protocols using our hybrid techniques are being developed."

Double the potential
While manmade qubits such as superconducting circuits require quality control to stay perfectly consistent, neutral atoms made from a single element all have exactly the same properties, making them ideal, consistent candidates for qubits.

But since every atom in the array has the same properties, it's extremely difficult to measure a single atom without disturbing its neighbors—they're all on the same frequency, so to speak.  READ MORE...

Milky Way Streaking

In 2017, astronomers noticed a star streaking out of the Milky Way at nearly 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h) — roughly four times faster than our sun orbits — and flying against the direction in which most stars trek around the galactic center. 

It's also made of completely different star stuff, mostly heavy, "metallic" atoms rather than the usual light elements. 

LP 40-365, as it was called, was as eye-catching as a wooden car barreling up the interstate against traffic at hundreds of miles per hour.

"It is exceptionally weird in a lot of different ways," said study lead author J.J. Hermes, an astronomer at Boston University.

The star moves so quickly that it's headed out of our galaxy for good, which astronomers have taken as evidence that the metallic explorer was launched here by a cosmic catastrophe — a supernova. 

But they couldn't tell how the supernova had sent it flying. Was LP 40-365 a piece of the exploded star itself? Or was it a partner star flung clear by the shockwave associated with star explosions? 

A new analysis of old data finds that the star — called a white dwarf — spins about its axis at a leisurely pace — a hint that it is indeed a piece of stellar debris (not a partner star) that managed to survive one of the galaxy's most violent and mysterious events.

"We can now connect this star to the shrapnel from an exploded white dwarf with a lot more confidence," said Hermes.  READ MORE

Spacetime

In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model which fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. The fabric of space-time is a conceptual model combining the three dimensions of space with the fourth dimension of time.  Source:  Wikipedia

But, to the ordinary person who lives in a 3 dimensional world, time simply moves forward in a straight line, and one's age increase each day, each week, each month, each year until one day that same person is no longer alive...  and, in their death, time continues.

To the ordinary person, life is seen to possess height, width, and depth and while height and depth seems to go on forever, width is constrained by one's environment; for example, if one is in one's home then the three dimensions are fixed and somewhat finite, however, if one is on the coast of let's say the Atlantic Ocean, then those same 3 dimensions seem to be endless and yet, we intuitively know that there are, in fact, limits.

Time is not seen so easily other than in the passing years, the body always changes sometimes that changes happens faster on some people than others but time is a concept of which everyone is aware even though like the dimensions is hardly ever discussed.

Similarly, hardly anyone talks about the atoms that are found in all matter and that because of the arrangement of these atoms we have different types of matter.  Likewise, hardly anyone talks about the breakdown of atoms into sub-atomic particles and that some of those particles are composed of even smaller particles to the point that the smallest imagined particle is a vibrating string of energy that has no probability of movement...  and, because of that lack of probability, we might have different dimensional realities in some sort of parallel but unseen universe.

Spacetime is a concept that is rarely imagined by the general public nor is it a topic of discussion at get togethers that meet social distancing guidelines...