An international team of researchers has created a quantum simulator that uses ytterbium atoms
Physicists used lasers for coolingfermions, ytterbium atoms, to about one billionth of a degree from absolute zero. This is about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space, which is still warmed by the afterglow of the Big Bang, the scientists explain. With this cooling, the atoms begin to exhibit quantum mechanical properties.
Unless an alien civilization is doing similar experiments right now, every time this experiment is done at Kyoto University, it produces the coldest fermions in the universe.
Caden Hazzard, study co-author at Rice University
The researchers used optical gratings −capturing atoms using laser beam interference - to simulate the Hubbard quantum model. It is needed to study the magnetic and superconducting behavior of materials, especially those in which interactions between electrons cause collective behavior.
Artistic illustration of Hubbard's model of ultra cold atoms. Image: Ella Maru Studio, Courtesy of K. Hazzard, Rice University
Physicists have demonstrated the possibilitysimultaneously hold up to 300 thousand individual atoms in the three-dimensional lattice of Hubbard's SU(6) model. At the same time, quantum modeling of the behavior of even 12 atoms in such a model is beyond the reach of the most powerful supercomputers, the scientists explain. The unique cooling achieved due to the symmetry of the system makes it possible to observe what cannot be calculated.
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