Scientists were able to create atoms that do not have previously known physical properties.
Objects in the real physical world around us, have properties independently of one another and regardless of that, we observed for these objects or not. Once albert Einstein was asked, the Moon is there even when no one is watching her? The answer to this question is quite obvious – Yes. However, this apparent certainty is incorrect in the shadowy world of small elementary particles whose behavior is described by laws of quantum mechanics. Location, speed, magnetic moment and torque of a particle can be very uncertain, moreover, these characteristics can be manifested only at the time of their measurements or depend on the quantum state of the other particles.
If to take into account the inaccurate assumption that the atoms possess certain parameters independently of the measurements of these parameters and are independent from each other, then we can deduce the so-called bell’s inequality (bell’s theorem). However, these equations describe that the properties of atoms in a particular quantum state are interrelated and it is called a bell correlation. Bell’s theorem also specifies that the properties of the atom manifest themselves only at the time of measurement of this property at any other time they are not only unknown, they don’t even exist as a class.
A group of researchers from the University of Basel (University of Basel), led by professors Nicholas Sangarara (Nicolas Sangouard) and Philip Treutlein (Philipp Treutlein), working together with colleagues from Singapore, first observed the phenomenon of correlation Bella in a big quantum system, consisting of 480 atoms of the condensate Bose-Einstein. Similar observations were made in the past, but they involved a very small number of quantum particles, four light photon in one case and 14 atoms in the second case. And in this case the results of the experiments indicate that specific quantum effects manifest themselves properly and in large quantum systems.
To observe the effects of correlations in large quantum bell system scientists had been the first to develop a new method that does not require measurements of the properties of any single particle, that is simply impossible at the current level of development of science and technology. In this case scientists helped one more equation from the series of bell inequalities, which was opened not so long ago. Scientists have created a cloud of atoms that were cooled by laser light to the temperatures a few thousandths of a degree above the temperature of absolute zero.
The atoms in this cloud constantly face and between their magnetic moments occurs the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. When the number of entangled atoms reaches a certain value, it is possible to detect the effects of correlation Bella. “We can assume that the random collision of atoms only increase the amount of chaos in the system” – says Roman Schmid (Roman Schmied), a leading researcher, – “However, the quantum mechanical properties of atoms become entangled so that it violates the classical statistics”.
Created by scientists in the condensation Bose-Einstein each of the atoms transferred to the state of quantum superposition. These entangled atoms by collisions, with the result that scientists have the ability to calculate how many of the atoms remain in a state of superposition. The percentage of atoms that have preserved and lost his original position, uncertain way varies from experiment to experiment. And when the ratio falls below a certain limit, it becomes clear that the atoms, as if pre “consistent” with the results of measurements of their parameters, and such “harmonization” accurately describes the correlation Bella.
The work done by scientists is yet more purely theoretical value, but in the future it may open new possibilities for realization of many quantum technologies, for example, for random number generation, secure quantum communication and quantum computing. “Bell correlations in systems composed of large numbers of quantum particles is as yet largely uncharted area in which there is a mass of unresolved issues,” – says Roman Schmid, – “Conducting our experiments, we enter the vast “white spots” on the map of knowledge about the physics of the world around us”.
