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Nature 448, 872-873 (23 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448872a; Published online 22 August 2007
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Quantum physics: Wave goodbye
Luis A. Orozco1
Abstract
When measuring photons, it's a case of 'wanted, dead' — catching them alive is not an option. But we can observe how a superposition of many photon waves progressively collapses as it interacts with a beam of atoms.
Earlier this year, a team from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris recorded jumps of light heralding the birth and death of a photon trapped in a cavity1. As they describe in this issue (Guerlin et al.page 889)2, the same researchers have now performed a similar, more complex trick — recording exactly how a coherent state of many photons collapses as it is measured.
- Luis A. Orozco is at the Joint Quantum Institute, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
Email: lorozco@umd.edu
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