We move forward in our universe with the confidence of a giant by giving a little thought to the fact that reality spreads bubbles with uncertainty.
But physicists have given a vague reminder that our macroscopic world is also subject to the laws of quantum physics – successfully trapping millimeter-sized drums with a huge cloud of atoms.
Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen conducted the experiment using a 13-nanometer-thick, millimeter-long silicon nitride membrane (or drum) that was lightly knitted when struck by a photon.
It came courtesy of a thin fog of photons, or particles of light, traveling within the confines of a tiny, cold cell.
Despite being two very different objects, the millimeter-long drum and the fog of atoms represent a trapped system – and they go beyond the limits of quantum mechanics.
“The bigger the objects, the more different they are, the more inconsistent they are, the more interesting the trap is created from both a basic and applied perspective,” says senior researcher Eugene Polzik.
“With the new result, it has become possible to get stuck between very different objects.”
It is a concept describing the connection between objects and objects that exist independently of time and space that seems more mystical than intuition.
No matter how far away, or how many years have passed, a change in one part of the trapped system, asks for an immediate adjustment in the rest of the people.
More than once, Einstein called the concept a ‘spooky action at a distance’, believing that it had more to do with our lack of knowledge than with anything truly strange.
A century later, our understanding of quantum physics not only leaves plenty of room for such spookiness, it forms the basis of a whole new field of innovation, from super strong encryption to new types of radar.
“Quantum mechanics is like a double-edged sword,” says Miche ł Parnick, a quantum physicist at the Nils Bohr Institute.
“It gives us stunning new technologies, but also limits the accuracy of the measurements that seem simple from a classical point of view.”
In isolation, the properties of a single particle are a restless disorder of probability represented by the rise and fall of a wave. It moves in all directions simultaneously. Spin in two directions at the same time. It is everything and it is nothing.
As the particle interacts with other objects, its uncertainty is not immediately destroyed, but it connects in a complex way that we can model in mathematics.
It is these highly speculative calculations that make up the backbone of quantum computers. Yet such tech relies on relatively equal number of spin particles.
That’s why this latest advancement is so important – the drum that appears in the wind wave of the photon emanating from the atomic cloud is a whole other gum for physicists.
Being able to observe a large-scale spread, including a variety of materials, is like studying a language that can be applied in quantum communication.
This incredibly fine would be surprisingly useful for ‘listening’ to instruments that require precision. Knowing how their quantum possibilities connect is an important step in figuring out how to get out of what would otherwise seem like chaos.
Take, for example, the enormous arrays or lasers that make up the Laser Interferometer Gravity-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Although abundant, the heart of the device lines the light waves with such precision that the very sound of uncertainty in an empty vacuum risks disturbing it.
Theoretically – trapping macroscopic systems such as Ligo mirrors can allow researchers to better account for the degree of quantum uncertainty.
A millimeter wide drum is a small step accepted by comparison. But for veterans like us, this is a crucial opportunity to listen carefully to the way reality shakes under our feet.
This research was published in Nature.
.
