Physics Frontier Center News

Exotic physics can happen when quantum particles come together and talk to each other. Understanding such processes is challenging for scientists, because the particle interactions can be hard to glimpse and even harder to control. Moreover, modern computer simulations struggle to make sense of all the intricate dynamics going on in a large group of particles. Luckily, atoms cooled to near zero temperatures can provide insight into this problem.

A team of researchers has devised a simple way to tune a hallmark quantum effect in graphene—the material formed from a single layer of carbon atoms—by bathing it in light. Their theoretical work, which was published recently in Physical Review Letters, suggests a way to realize novel quantum behavior that was previously predicted but has so far remained inaccessible in experiments.

If you holler at someone across your yard, the sound travels on the bustling movement of air molecules. But over long distances your voice needs help to reach its destination—help provided by a telephone or the Internet. Atoms don’t yell, but they can share information through light. And they also need help connecting over long distances.

Computers based on quantum physics promise to solve certain problems much faster than their conventional counterparts. By utilizing qubits—which can have more than just the two values of ordinary bits—quantum computers of the future could perform complex simulations and may solve difficult problems in chemistry, optimization and pattern-recognition.