Ultracold -ure could revaler how quantum physics change time

What does the time look like for a real quantum object? The world’s best watches may soon be able to answer this question, test how time can stretch and change in the quantum area and allow us to investigate non -physics areas.

The idea where the passage of time can change or expand original in Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Einstein showed when an object approaches the speed of light, time seems to be driving slower for it than for a stationary observer. He expanded this idea with his general theory of relativity, where a gravitational field has the same time -vening effect. Igor Pikovski at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey and his colleagues wanted to understand what similar could happen over time in the microscopic quantum world, measured by an ultra -cold watch made of ions.

“Every experience that we have to date always senses something like classic time, time that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics,” says Pikovski. “We realized that there is a regime where this description of ionure simply fails,” he says.

Such watches are made of thousands of ions cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero by being hit by lasers. At these extreme temperatures, the quantum condition of the ions and electrons inside them can be controlled very precisely with electromagnetic forces. Consequently, the ticks of ionure are set by these electrons, which repeatedly swing between two specific statum statistics.

Becuse their operation is dictated by the laws of quantum mechanics, these watches were the perfect framework for Pikovski and his colleagues to investigate how relativism and quantum effects can mix to affect watches’ ticks. Pikovski says the researchers have now identified several cases where this ouught to happen.

An example stems from the fact that quantum physics are deterred. Instead of being able to stand absolutely still and frozen, even at extremely low temperatures, quantum objects must swing, randomly get or lose energy. The team’s calculation showed that these fluctuations could be expanded a watch measurement of time. The effect would be very small but very likely observable with existing ionure experiment.

The researchers also modeled mathematically what would happen if a clock ions were “pressed” to produce an “overlay” of several quantum states. They found that the watching of the watch, as determined by the electrons in the ions, would be inericabaly connected to the movement itself – the ions and electrons would be quantified. “Usually in the experiment, you have to play tricks to construct. The fascinating thing is that it is where you want it or not,” says team member Christian Sanner at Colorado State University.

Pikovski says it makes intuitive sense that a quantum object in a superposition of states could not experience only a sense of time, but the effect has never been observed in an experience. It should be possible in the near future, he says.

Team member Gabriel Sorci at the Stevens Institute of Technology says the next step is to add another crucial modern physics ingredient – gravity. Ultracold -watches can already detect time expansion due to minuscule changes in the strength of the Earth’s gravitational shutter, for example when raised a few more millimeters, but exactly how to influence the inherent quantum of the clock is an open question.

“I think this is actions that are reasonable to do with the technology we currently have,” says David Hume at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado. He says the biggest challenge would be to prevent small disturbances from the watch environment from overhauling the effects of Hinéd on Pikovski’s team. If successful, such an experiment would allow scientists to examine physics fenumena they could never before, even though quantum theory and the theory of special relativity are two pillars that have long held a lot of contemporary physics, he says.

“Experiments like this are exciting because they are strengths of strength to confront each other in a domain where there is a chance that we can learn something new,” says Alexander Smith at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.