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It may look like a tangle of pipes, wires and tubs, but the basic experiment can hold antimatter in magnetic traps. | Credit: Cern
Physicist in Cern – home of the Great Hadron collider – made a qubit of antimatter for the first time and kept an anti -proton in a state of quantum overlay for almost a minute.
This groundbreaking service was carried out by scientists as part of the basic cooperation at CERN. The basis is the baryon antibetic symmetry experiment, which measures the magnetic moment of anti -protons -essentially how strongly they interact with magnetic fields.
While qubits are usually associated with quantum computing, in this case the anti -Protone qubit is used to test differences between ordinary matter and antimatter. It will expressly contribute to examining the question of why we live in a universe that is so dominated by ordinary matter if matter should have been created in the same quantities during the Big Bang.
You are mutually opposites, right?
For example, a proton and an anti -proton have the same mass, but opposite loads. In physics, the mirror image characteristics between matter and antimacy are referred to as CPT symmetry (charge-parent period). The CPT symmetry also states that a particle and anti -particle should experience the laws of physics in the same way, which means, for example, gravity or electromagnetism with the same strength (for example, that it was actually actually tested and is actually an anti -protons with the same rate as a proton).
If the universe emerged theoretically, there should be a 50:50 chance that antimacy or regular matter particles will be created. But for some reason it didn’t happen. It is very strange. Even the basic project found that protons and anti -protons have a precision of parts per billion per billion. Unfortunately more symmetry.
However, the basic apparatus made it possible for physicists to go one step further.
Study author Barbara Latacz works on the basic experiment. | Credit: Cern
Anti -Proton core
When matter and antimacy come into contact, they destroy each other in a outbreak of gamma -ray photons so that the base has to keep them apart. To do this, it uses so -called penning traps, which, thanks to the careful use of electrical and magnetic fields, can keep charged particles in position. The basis has two primary penning traps. One is referred to as analysis trap that measures the precession of the magnetic moment around a magnetic field, and the other is the precision trap that can turn the quantum spin of a particle and measure the oscillation of the particle in a magnetic field.
The quantum physics tells us that particles are born in a state of overlay. For example, we take the property of quantum spin, which is only an example of the craziness of the quantum universe. Despite the name, Spin does not describe the actual rotation of a particle; Rather, it describes a property that imitates the rotation. How do we know that it is not a real rotation? If this were the case, the properties of the quantum spin would mean that particles turn many times faster than the speed of light – which is impossible.
Therefore, basic particles such as electrons, protons and anti -protons have quantum spinic values, even if they don’t really turn, and these values can be expressed either as a whole number or as a fraction. The quantum spin of a proton and anti -proton can be 1/2 or –1/2, and it is the quantum spin that creates the magnetic moment of the particle.
Due to the magic of quantum surplus, which describes how all possible quantum states in the quantum wave function of a particle exist synchronously, a proton or anti -proton can also have a shoot of 1/2 or –1/2. That means, at least until they are measured and the quantum wave function that describes the quantum state of the particle collapses on a value. This is another little craziness of the quantum world – particles have all sorts of properties at the same time until they are observed how the cat from Schrödinger, who also lives in a box and is dead until someone opens the box. In fact, every type of interaction with the outside world causes the wave function to collapse in a process that is called decoration.
Why this is done is a major debate between the various interpretations of quantum physics.
Regardless of this, basic scientists were able to keep an anti -proton in an overlay by the fortress of an anti -proton that is kept in the precision trap without decrypting for about 50 seconds – a recording for antimacy (this was previously achieved with ordinary matter particles for much longer durations). They formed a qubit from the anti -proton.
The portable basic step trap, which is lowered by crane (bottom left) on the Cern. | Credit: Cern
Keep the qubits away!
A quBit is a quantum version of a byte used in computer processing. A typical, binary byte can have a value of 1 or 0. A qubit can be both 1 and 0 at the same time (or at the same time have a shoot of 1/2 and –1/2), and a quantum computer that uses qubits with qubits with quBites can therefore basically accelerate the processing times of the information.
However, it is unlikely that the anti -Protone qubit will find work in the quantum computer, since ordinary matter can be used more easily without destroying the risk of antimatter. Instead, the anti -Protone qubit could be used to further test differences between matter and antimacy and whether the CPT symmetry is violated at any stage.
“This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to individual matter and antimater systems in precision experiments,” said basic spokesman Stefan Ulmer from the Riken Advanced Science Institute in Japan in Japan. “The most important thing is that the basis in future experiments with a 10 to 100-fold improved precision will help with the base.”
Base’s experiments currently have to take place in Cern, where antimacy is generated in the large Hadron collider. However, the next phase of antimacy research will be a basic step (symmetry tests in experiments with portable anti-protons), a device that contains a portable Pennstift trap that enables researchers to safely move anti-protons in laboratories with a calm, specially built facilities that can be black with magnetics. can reduce with magnetics.
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“As soon as it is fully functional, our new offline precision penning trap system, which is delivered with anti-protons from Base-Step, could enable us to achieve spin coherence times ten times longer than in current experiments than in current experiments.
The results are described in a paper that was published in the Nature magazine on July 23.
