Levitating glass bead closes in on quantum mechanics' fundamental limit
Two different methods track position and speed of an ultracold glass sphere with a precision that comes close to the limit set by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
The motion of an optically trapped glass bead has been slowed down to the state of lowest possible energy using two methods developed independently by teams in Austria and Switzerland. ‘These two works achieved the highest precision in controlling and measuring levitated nanoparticle optomechanical systems close to the Heisenberg limit, which is the ultimate bound set by quantum mechanics,’ says optical physicist Jianming Wen from Kennesaw State University in the US.
According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the location and state of motion of a particle can’t be determined simultaneously with infinite precision. Wen explains that the methods minimise undesired effects that are intrinsically associated with the experiments.