All articles tagged with #wavefunction
The piece revisits Schrödinger’s 1935 cat-in-a-box thought experiment, used to critique interpretations of quantum mechanics by suggesting a system could be in a live-and-dead superposition until observed. It notes Schrödinger’s letter to Einstein and the ongoing debate over whether reality collapses to a definite state at measurement, highlighting the origin and stakes of the quantum measurement problem.
A team studying quantum-collapse models (Diósi–Penrose and Continuous Spontaneous Localization) linked to gravity finds that time itself may have a minute intrinsic uncertainty, implying a fundamental limit on how precisely time can be measured. The effect is unimaginably small and would not affect current timekeeping, but it suggests deep connections between quantum mechanics and gravity and offers a way to experimentally distinguish collapse models from standard quantum theory.
Physicists at ETH Zurich and the Barcelona Institute of Photonic Sciences have developed a method to control and expand the quantum wavepacket of levitated nanoparticles, potentially paving the way for matter-wave interference experiments with larger objects by using a technique called quantum squeezing to increase coherence length.
Researchers from the University of Ottawa and the Sapienza University of Rome have developed a technique using digital holography to visualize the wavefunction of an entangled pair of photons, demonstrating the reality of quantum entanglement. The technique involves superimposing the wave of the entangled photons with a reference wave and analyzing the distribution of coincidences. The resulting image resembles a Yin and Yang symbol and has implications for quantum technologies such as quantum computers. The technique also has the potential to inspire new imaging techniques beyond the limits of classical optics.