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Quantum measurement

A condensate's main squeeze

Nature volume 464, pages 1133–1134 (2010)Cite this article

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Entanglement between particles permits the quantum uncertainty in one variable to be reduced at the cost of increasing that in another. Condensates are an ideal system in which this technique can be studied.

Entanglement is a feature of quantum mechanics that allows seemingly impossible correlations between nominally independent particles. It has puzzled physicists and philosophers since it was first proposed, but has been experimentally verified in several systems and is now being developed for applications such as quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum metrology. Actually implementing these applications can be quite challenging, however. In this issue, two groups, Riedel et al.1 (page 1170) and Gross et al.2 (page 1165), report the observation of a particularly useful form of entanglement in a Bose–Einstein condensate — a sample of ultracold atoms that are all in the same quantum state. Condensates have become a workhorse for atomic physics experiments because they are relatively convenient to produce and manipulate. These results should therefore make many entanglement applications more feasible.

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Figure 1: Spin squeezing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Charles A. Sackett is in the Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA. sackett@virginia.edu,

    Charles A. Sackett

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  1. Charles A. Sackett
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Sackett, C. A condensate's main squeeze. Nature 464, 1133–1134 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4641133a

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