Access
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
News and Views
Nature 445, 605-606 (8 February 2007) | doi:10.1038/445605a; Published online 7 February 2007
Open Innovation Challenges
-
Direct Molecular Detection of Proteins and Nucleic Acids
This Challenge is looking for novel approaches to protein and nucleic acid detection. This is an Id...
-
Optimizing Sub-cellular Localization Tags
The Seeker is looking for methods to optimize sub-cellular localization tags for protein expression....
- More Challenges
- Powered by:
nature jobs
Junior Research Groups (W1 / W2)
- Cluster of Excellence "Multimodal Computing and Interaction"
- Saarbruecken Germany
Professor of Experimental Virology (W3)
- University Hospital Jena, Institute of Virology and Antivirale Therapy
- Jena, Germany
Quantum physics: Indistinguishable from afar
Michael Fleischhauer1
Abstract
Imprinting a coherent light pulse on the spins of atoms is standard quantum sorcery. Retrieving the same light pulse from a second, distant set of atoms looks rather like black magic. But it, too, is just quantum mechanics.
In the quantum world, particles of the same kind are indistinguishable: the wavefunction that describes them is a superposition of every single particle of that kind occupying every allowed state. Strictly speaking, this means that we can't talk, for instance, about an electron on Earth without mentioning all the electrons on the Moon in the same breath.
- Michael Fleischhauer is in the Fachbereich Physik, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Stra
e, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Email: mfleisch@physik.uni-kl.de
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS
These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
NEWS AND VIEWS
Quantum physics Tangled memoriesNature News and Views (06 Mar 2008)
Quantum dots Collective radianceNature Physics News and Views (01 Feb 2007)
See all 13 matches for News And ViewsRESEARCH
Coherent control of optical information with matter wave dynamicsNature Letters to Editor (08 Feb 2007)
Coherent spinor dynamics in a spin-1 Bose condensateNature Physics Article (01 Nov 2005)
See all 52 matches for Research