| Posted: Nov 24, 2010 | |
A new electromagnetism can be simulated through a quantum simulator |
|
| (Nanowerk News) A quantum simulator is a variant of a quantum computer that allows us to outperform classical computers in the understanding of complex quantum systems. | |
| There are two fundamental aspects that make these devices attractive for scientists. On the one hand, quantum simulators will play a leading role in clarifying some important, but yet unsolved, puzzles of theoretical physics.. On the other hand, such deeper understanding of a given phenomenon will certainly give rise to useful technological applications. | |
| One of the best quantum simulators consists of a gas of extremely cold atoms loaded in an artificial crystal made of light: an optical lattice. Experimental physicists have developed efficient techniques to control the quantum properties of this system, to such extent, that it serves as an ideal quantum simulator of different phenomena. | |
| So far, efforts have been focused on condensed-matter systems, where many open and interesting problems remain to be solved. | |
| In a recent work published in Physical Review Letters ("Wilson Fermions and Axion Electrodynamics in Optical Lattices") by a collaboration of international teams (Universidad Complutense de Madrid: A. Bermudez and M.A. Martin-Delgado; ICFO Barcelona: M. Lewenstein; Max-Planck Institute Garching: L. Mazza, M. Rizzi; Universite de Brussels: N. Goldman), this platform has also been shown to be a potential quantum simulator of high-energy physics. | |
| The authors have proposed a clean and controllable setup where a variety of exotic, but still unobserved, phenomena arise. They describe how to build a quantum simulator of Axion Electrodynamics (high-energy physics), and 3D Topological Insulators (condensed matter). In particular, these results pave the way to the fabrication of an Axion, a long sought-after missing particle in the standard model of elementary particles. They show that their atomic setup constitutes an axion medium, where an underlying topological order gives rise to a non-vanishing axion field. | |
| Besides, they show how the value of the axion can attain arbitrary values, and how its dynamics and space-dependence can be experimentally controlled. Accordingly, their optical-lattice simulator offers a unique possibility to observe diverse effects, such as the Wiiten effect, the Wormhole effect, or a fractionally charged capacitor, in atomic-physics laboratories. | |
| This work has an interdisciplinary character, which brings together physicists specializing in lattice gauge theories, atomic molecular and optical physics, and condensed matter physics. |
| Source: madrimasd |
Subscribe to a free copy of one of our daily
Nanowerk Newsletter Email Digests
with a compilation of all of the day's news.
Nanowerk Newsletter Email Digests
with a compilation of all of the day's news.
These articles might interest you as well: