This quantum chip (1x1cm) allows the researchers to listen to the smallest radio signal allowed by quantum mechanics. Credit: TU Delft
Posted on 03/08/2019 8:33:49 AM PST by ETL
This quantum chip (1x1cm) allows the researchers to listen to the smallest radio signal allowed by quantum mechanics. Credit: TU Delft
Researchers at Delft University of Technology have created a quantum circuit to listen to the weakest radio signal allowed by quantum mechanics. This new quantum circuit opens the door to possible future applications in areas such as radio astronomy and medicine (MRI). It also enables experiments to shed light on the interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity. The results have been published in Science.
The usual solution to a weak radio signal is to find a bigger signal, for instance, by picking a different radio station or by moving to the other side of the room.
However,m what if we could just listen more carefully?
Weak radio signals are not just a challenge for people trying to find their favourite radio station, but also for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners at hospitals, as well as for the telescopes scientists use to peer into space. In a quantum leap in radio frequency detection, researchers in the group of Prof. Gary Steele in Delft demonstrated the detection of photons or quanta of energy, the weakest signals allowed by the theory of quantum mechanics.
Quantum chunks
One of the strange predictions of quantum mechanics is that energy comes in tiny little chunks called quanta. What does this mean? "Say I am pushing a kid on a swing," says lead researcher Mario Gely. "In the classical theory of physics, if I want the kid to go a little bit faster I can give them a small push, giving them more speed and more energy. Quantum mechanics says something different: I can only increase the kid's energy one 'quantum step' at a time. Pushing by half of that amount is not possible."
For a kid on a swing, these quantum steps are so tiny that they are too small to notice. Until recently, the same was true for radio waves. However, the research team in Delft developed a circuit that can actually detect these chunks of energy in radio frequency signals, opening up the potential for sensing radio waves at the quantum level.
From quantum radio to quantum gravity?
Beyond applications in quantum sensing, the group in Delft is interested in taking quantum mechanics to the next level: mass. While the theory of quantum electromagnetism was developed nearly 100 years ago, physicists are still puzzled today on how to fit gravity into quantum mechanics.
Explore further: How Einstein's equivalence principle extends to the quantum world
More information: Mario F. Gely et al. Observation and stabilization of photonic Fock states in a hot radio-frequency resonator, Science (2019). DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw3101
That’s the thing about quantum radio. It doesn’t exist until you listen to it.
It’s like a Border Blaster, but from another dimension.
“That’s the thing about quantum radio. It doesn’t exist until you listen to it.”
But when you listen, it quits working.
So hard to turn the damn tiny knobs!
” It doesn’t exist until you listen to it “
A new Koan!
So if a tree falls in a forest planet, we’ll finally know about it!
Maybe I can listen to Yacht Rock uninterrupted?
Yacht Rock?
Is that what Gallagher was playing as he drove around in his car boat in “Going Overboard”?
It’s a favorite station XM.
70s and 80s soft rock with some really funny bumpers.
It doesn’t exist until you listen to it.
LOL
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