Physicists have taken an amazing step towards quantum devices that sound like science fiction.
For the first time, isolated groups of particles behaving like bizarre states of matter known as time crystals have been linked into a single evolving system that could be incredibly useful in quantum computing.
Two years ago, a paper was published detailing the first observation of the interaction between two time crystals.
Time crystals were thought to be impossible a few years ago. They are a phase of matter that is very similar to normal crystals, but with one exception.
The atoms are arranged in a three-dimensional grid structure in regular crystals. Any movement they exhibit comes from external pushes.
The atoms behave differently in time crystals. They exhibit patterns of movement in time that are hard to explain by push or shove.
Time crystals are stable and coherent over long periods of time, because they tick at their lowest energy state, known as the ground state. When the structure of regular crystals repeats in space, it repeats in space and time as well.
Physicist and lead author Samuli Autti of Lancaster University in the UK says that motion machines are impossible.
In quantum physics, if we keep our eyes closed, it's okay to keep moving. We can make time crystals by sneaking through this crack.
The team has been working with time crystals. Magnons are not particles but a wave of electrons that travel through a lattice of spins.
When a stable isotope of helium with two protons but only one neutron is cooled to a point of absolute zero, magnons emerge. A zero-viscosity fluid with low pressure is called a B-phase superfluid.
Time crystals formed as Bose-Einstein condensates, each consisting of a trillion magnon quasiparticles.
A Bose-Einstein condensate is formed when the atoms stop moving after being cooled to just a fraction above absolute zero.
This causes them to sink to their lowest-energy state, moving extremely slowly, and coming together close enough to overlap, creating a high density cloud of atoms.
They exchanged magnons when they were allowed to touch each other. The exchange created a single system with an option of functioning in two states.
In quantum physics, objects that can have more than one state exist in a mix of states before being pinned down by a measurement. A time crystal operating in a two-state system provides rich new pickings as a basis for quantum-based technologies.
There are a lot of hurdles to overcome before time crystals can be used as qubits. The pieces are starting to fit together.
Earlier this year, a different team of physicists announced that they had created room temperature time crystals that don't need to be isolated from their surroundings.
More sophisticated interactions between time crystals and the fine control will need to be developed, as will observing interacting time crystals without the need for cooled superfluids. Scientists are positive.
Even if time crystals don't exist in the first place, putting two of them together works well.
The research has been published.
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