Two Time Crystals Have Been Successfully Connected Together For the First Time

The wonderful step taken by physicists

Physicists have just taken an wonderful step regarding quantum devices that seems like something out of science fiction.

For the first time, isolated sets of particles acting like unusual states of matter known as time crystals have been connected into a single, advancing system that could be extremely useful in quantum computing.

Following the 1st observation of the interaction between two-time crystals, explained in a paper two years earlier, this is the following step towards potentially harnessing time crystals for experimental objectives, such as quantum information processing.

Time crystals, just officially found out and confirmed a few years ago in 2016, were once thought to be physically not feasible. They are a phase of the matter very similar to typical crystals, but for one additional, peculiar, and very unique property.

In regular crystals, the atoms are organized in a fixed, three-dimensional grid structure, like the atomic lattice of a diamond or quartz crystal. These repeating lattices can be different in configuration, but any motion they display comes exclusively from external pushes.

In time crystals, the atoms act a bit differently. They show patterns of motion in time that can not be so easily explained by an external push or shove. These oscillations– described as ‘ticking’— are locked to a regular and specific frequency.

In theory, time crystals reach at their lowest possible energy state– referred as the ground state– and are consequently stable and coherent over long periods of time. So, where the structure of regular crystals repeats in space, in time crystals, it repeats in space and time, thus exhibiting perpetual ground state movement.

Samuli Autti speaks for physicists

“Everybody has knowledge that perpetual movement machines are not possible,” states Physicist and lead author Samuli Autti of Lancaster College in the UK.

“Nonetheless, in quantum physics perpetual movement is okay as long as we keep our eyes closed. By sneaking through this crack we can make time crystals.”

The time crystals the group have been working with has to do with quasiparticles named magnons. Magnons are not true particles but consist of collective excitation of the spin of electrons, like a wave that propagates by a lattice of spins.

Magnons appear when helium-3– a stable isotope of helium with 2 protons but only one neutron– is cooled to within one ten-thousandth of degree absolute zero.

This forms what is named a B-phase superfluid, a zero-viscosity fluid with low pressure.

Bose-Einstein

In this medium, time crystals created as spatially distinct Bose-Einstein condensates, each containing a trillion magnon quasiparticles.

A Bose-Einstein condensate is generated from bosons cooled down to simply fraction over absolute zero (but not getting to absolute zero, at which point atoms stop moving).

This makes them to sink to their lowest-energy state, moving very slowly, and coming together close enough to overlap, making a high-density cloud of atoms that acts like one ‘super atom’ or matter wave.

When the two-time crystals were permitted to touch each other, they changed magnons. This change influenced the oscillation of each time crystal, developing a single system with a choice of functioning in 2, discrete states.

Time crystal operating in a two-state system

In quantum physics, objects that can get more than one state exist in a mix of those states before they have been pinned down by a simple measurement. However, having a time crystal operating in a two-state system provides a rich new selecting as a basis for quantum-based technologies.

Time crystals are a fair method from being deployed as qubits, as there are many hurdles to solve first. Nevertheless, the pieces are starting to dropping into place.

Earlier this year, a group of physicists revealed that they had successfully created space temperature time crystals that do not require to be separated from their ambient surroundings.

More advanced interactions between time crystals and precise control will require further development, as will noticing interacting time crystals without the requirement for cooled super liquids. However, scientists are hopeful.

“It turns out putting two of them together works beautifully, even if time crystals should not exist in the first place,” Autti says. “And we already know they also exist at room temperature.“

Read the original article on: Science Alert.

Read more: SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy Is One Crucial Step Closer To Sending Humans To Mars