2023-11-04 09:07:34
It is through our senses that we first apprehend the world. And the quantum world remains largely inaccessible to these senses. Hence our difficulty in understanding it. But things may change now that physicists have succeeded in ” to touch “ a quantum object.
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The world of quantum physics is strange to say the least. So different from ours that we easily imagine it intangible. But physicists like challenges. So they looked for an answer to this question that was burning on the lips of all scientists — and maybe even a few curious people among you: “What does it feel like to touch a quantum object?” »
Touching a quantum superfluid using a probe
Physicists from Lancaster University (UK) report today in the newspaper Nature Communication how they (almost) managed to touch a superfluid of helium 3 (3He). Almost because to make it superfluid, researchers must maintain the helium in question at a temperature of around one ten thousandth of a degree above absolute zero. It is therefore impossible to consider actually dipping a finger in it.
The researchers therefore implemented a complex protocol. And they were finally able to dip a finger-sized probe into it. A probe whose objective was to transmit thermodynamic information to physicists. It worked. They concluded that most of the superfluid behaves like a vacuum. So if you plunged your finger into it, a two-dimensional surface would form around it and it is therefore only with a two-dimensional fluid that the interaction would take place.
A two-dimensional impression for the superfluid
It’s strange ? Yes. But it’s quantum… In any case, this work, beyond satisfying a little of our curiosity, also gives a new vision of this superfluid which has already been studied extensively by scientists. At the lowest temperatures and energies, the helium-3 superfluid is thermomechanically two-dimensional. And the implications might go beyond the limits of quantum physics to shake up particle physics or even cosmology.
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