A new technique to measure vibrating atoms could improve the precision of atomic clocks and of quantum sensors for detecting dark matter or gravitational waves. A tiny universe of information is contained in the quantum vibrations in atoms. Scientists can hone the precision of atomic clocks as we
“We think this is the paradigm of the future,” says lead author Vladan Vuletic, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics at MIT. “Any quantum interference that works with many atoms can profit from this technique.”
MIT researchers used a system of lasers to first entangle, then reverse the evolution of a cloud of ultracold atoms. Credit: Simone Colomboby entangling the atoms — a quantum phenomenon by which particles are coerced to behave in a collective, highly correlated state. In this entangled state, the oscillations of individual atoms should shift toward a common frequency that would take far fewer attempts to accurately measure.
“In quantum mechanics, if you know the Hamiltonian, then you can track what the system is doing through time, like a quantum trajectory,” Pedrozo-Peñafiel explains. “If this evolution is completely quantum, quantum mechanics tells you that you can de-evolve, or go back and go to the initial state.” For their new study, the team studied 400 ultracold atoms of ytterbium, one of two atom types used in today’s atomic clocks. They cooled the atoms to just a hair above, at temperatures where most classical effects such as heat fade away and the atoms’ behavior are governed purely by quantum effects.
They then measured the particles’ oscillations as they settled back into their unentangled states, and found that their final phase was markedly different from their initial phase — clear evidence that a quantum change had occurred somewhere in their forward evolution.
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