Research News

Two physical phenomena, localization and ergodicity-breaking, are conjoined in new experimental and theoretical work.  Before we consider possible implications for fundamental physics and for prospective quantum computing, let’s first look at these two topics in turn.  It will bear providing some specific examples before getting to the quantum details.

 LOCALIZATION

From NIST-PML — Precise measurements of optical power enable activities from fiber-optic communications to laser manufacturing and biomedical imaging — anything requiring a reliable source of light. This situation calls for light-measuring (radiometric) standards that can operate over a wide range of power levels.

 It’s easy to contemplate the wave nature of light in common experience.  White light passing through a prism spreads out into constituent colors; it diffracts from atmospheric moisture into a rainbow; light passing across a sharp edge or a diffraction grating creates an interference pattern.  It’s harder to fathom the wave behavior of things usually thought of as particles, such as electrons and atoms.  And yet these matter waves play a role in physics and in technology.  For example, electron beams, manifested as waves, provide an important form of microscopy.

From NIST TechBeat--It’s not lightsaber time, not yet. But a team including theoretical physicists from JQI and NIST has taken another step toward building objects out of photons, and the findings hint that weightless particles of light can be joined into a sort of “molecule” with its own peculiar force. Researchers show that two photons, depicted in this artist’s conception as waves (left and right), can be locked together at a short distance.