Then, at the point when classical effects should be suppressed, leaving solely interactions and quantum laws to dominate the atoms’ behavior, the needle spontaneously broke into a crystalline pattern, resembling a string of miniature, quantum tornadoes.
They watched as the initially round cloud of atoms first deformed into a thin, needle-like structure. In a study published today in Nature, the MIT team has rapidly rotated a quantum fluid of ultracold atoms. Researchers have predicted that, in a rotating fluid, interactions will dominate and drive the particles to exhibit exotic, never-before-seen behaviors. Now, MIT physicists have directly observed the interplay of interactions and quantum mechanics in a particular state of matter: a spinning fluid of ultracold atoms. But observing such purely quantum mechanical behavior of interacting particles amid the overwhelming noise of the classical world is a tricky undertaking. When particles interact, purely as a consequence of these quantum effects, a host of odd phenomena should ensue.
An atom, for instance, has a certain chance of being in one location and another chance of being at another location, at the same exact time. How we move, where we are, and how fast we’re going are all determined by the classical assumption that we can only exist in one place at any one moment in time.īut in the quantum world, the behavior of individual atoms is governed by the eerie principle that a particle’s location is a probability. The world we experience is governed by classical physics.
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