Recently, scientists have created a new quantum object in the laboratory - a quantum "domain wall".
The discovery could help researchers study quantum particles and open the way for future new technologies, such as quantum electronics or quantum memory. The results of the research were published in the journal Nature.
The "Domain Wall" image, adapted and colored based on experimental data, is from the University of Chicago
During the experiment, the team at the University of Chicago led by Professor Cheng Chin noticed an interesting phenomenon occurring inside the atom at extremely low temperatures. The laboratory focuses on novel quantum systems and their underlying physics.
Under the right conditions, groups of atoms can be separated into domains, forming a "wall" at the junction of encounters. This "domain wall" behaves like an independent quantum object.
"It's a bit like a dune in a desert — a dune is made of sand, but a dune is like an object because it behaves differently from a single grain of sand." Yao Kaixuan, the paper's first author, said.
Previously, scientists had seen these "domain walls" in quantum materials, but could not be reliably generated and analyzed. The University of Chicago team observed strange behavior by manufacturing and studying "domain walls."
"We have a lot of experience in controlling atoms," Professor Chin said, "and it's well known that if you push atoms to the right, they move to the right." But here, if you push the 'domain wall' to the right, it will move to the left. ”
"Domain walls" are a type of emergent phenomenon. In simple terms, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties that its constituent parts do not have.
This means that the "domain wall" seems to follow a new law of physics, and its reverse movement is the result of multiple particles acting together as a collective.
The team studied emergent phenomena such as "domain walls" and thought they could reveal a dynamical gauge theory that describes emerging phenomena in materials and the early universe that brought the first particles together to form galaxies, stars, and planets.
Breakthroughs in this area have also made new quantum technologies possible. "Domain walls" may be the basis for future technologies, just as the foundation of modern GPS stems from scientists' attempts to validate Einstein's theory of relativity in the 1950s.
"This phenomenon (domain walls) could be applied in the manufacture of programmable quantum materials or quantum information processors — it could be used to create a more robust way to store quantum information, or to give materials new capabilities." Chin said, "But before we find the answer, the first step is to understand how to control them." ”