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Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu

Sandra Eibenberger, Stefan Gerlich, Markus Arndt, Marcel Mayor, Jens Tüxen

2013 · arXiv

PhysicsBiology & medicineAlgorithms
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From the abstract

The quantum superposition principle, a key distinction between quantum physics and classical mechanics, is often perceived as a philosophical challenge to our concepts of reality, locality or space-time since it contrasts our intuitive expectations with experimental observations on isolated quantum systems. While we are used to associating the notion of localization with massive bodies, quantum physics teaches us that every individual object is associated with a wave function that may eventually delocalize by far more than the body's own extension. Numerous experiments have verified this concept at the microscopic scale but intuition wavers when it comes to delocalization experiments with complex objects. While quantum science is the uncontested ideal of a physics theory, one may ask if the superposition principle can persist on all complexity scales. This motivates matter-wave diffraction and interference studies with large compounds in a three-grating interferometer configuration which also necessitates the preparation of high-mass nanoparticle beams at low velocities. Here we demonstrate how synthetic chemistry allows us to prepare libraries of fluorous porphyrins which can be tailored to exhibit high mass, good thermal stability and relatively low polarizability, which allows us to form slow thermal beams of these high-mass compounds, which can be detected in electron ionization mass spectrometry. We present successful superposition experiments with selected species from these molecular libraries in a quantum interferometer, which utilizes the diffraction of matter waves at an optical phase grating. We observe high-contrast quantum fringe patterns with molecules exceeding a mass of 10 000 amu and 810 atoms in a single particle.

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In the conversation

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4 selected excerpts · 4 total mentions

anthk
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You could be surprised when Science, IT and metaphysics meet: https://github.com/kl4yfd/timewave_z3r0 https://github.com/jasondrawdy/Omniwave Now point that to 12th August, 2026 to see it's there's some relation. The lower the Y point = the more the 'novelty'. It's a bit of crackpot science but that would just mean most of the humanity behaviour from genomics it's highly predictable except for some cosmetics and newer knowledge. You can see these patterns in big human gatherings. And under bird flocks. The more people you connect, the less individuality you'll get, as some unique behaviour will emerge from few leaders, as if they were tied to virtual…
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strings/chains. Also: this is entirely crazy: Title:Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 TL;DR: Apparenting separate system behaving as a single one. Like birds without colliding into themselves while flying.
Original comment We Recreated Steve Jobs's 1975 Atari Horoscope Program and You Can Run It
goldenkey
Neutral mention · rule
> I have huge problems believing The universe is indifferent to your persuasions. The double slit experiment has been successfully performed on large molecules of 810 atoms. Quantum mechanics is fundamentally about knowledge and information after interactions. You seem to be a physics guy but something tells me you aren't aware that every single interaction causes entanglement. Entanglement is simply a constraint on interaction products, given the input particles. It is just easier to see its effects on small objects since they are less likely to be perturbed. https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343
Original comment What did Einstein mean by “spooky action at a distance”?
raattgift
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> I’m not sure I believe that a mathematical formalism that is unable to make useful real world predictions deserves the “theory” moniker. Hence your list of quantum theories of gravity aren’t. On the contrary, the ones I listed are all completely in accord with General Relativity up to strong gravity and absent superposed sources, which is found from studying the renormalization group flow of perturbative quantum gravity and is four loops of gravitons in a 3+1 dimensional spacetime. Strong gravity can only be found very close to the singularity of black holes (and well inside event horizons, except at the final evaporation), or in the very early universe. So we're good…
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for neutron stars, and have no problems studying things around the event horizons of astrophysical black holes. The only new mathematical formalism in perturbative quantum gravity is renormalization, and that goes back to the 1980s. Perturbative quantum gravity itself comes from the 1990s. Sean Carroll has a good explanation of renormalization and effective field theory here: http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2013/06/20/how-quan... Asymptotically safe gravity posits an ultraviolet fixed point at which one can take a finite number of measurements, producing a strong gravity completion that perturbative renormalzation cannot; this is prompted by asymptotic safety in QCD. Below that limit, ASG completely matches perturbative quantum gravity, and so in the EFT limit it's the same as General Relativity. There are five or six of other viable families of quantum theories of gravity, where viability means they accord exactly with perturbatively quantized General Relativity in its effective field limit, and thus agree completely with GR in the classical limit and weak gravity, and additionally are candidates as fundamental theories because they do not rely on perturbative renormalization by power counting and thus are expected to be useful to arbitrarily high energies. Additionally it is not wildly irresponsible to think that mathematical research (perhaps not driven by physics!) will produce a tractable renormalization that does not require nature to select a convenient effect to suppress the explosion of parameters at high energies. > I’d love to see an experimental setup that was capable of detecting the gravitational field of a single molecule: that would be impressive! Everyone would. We're down below milligrams and yoctoNewtons: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.07539 http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2014/06/26/smallest-force-ever-mea... I'm not as au fait about how the other side of the tunnel is approaching the ultimate meeting point, but it's not unreasonable to think of nanogram masses in superposition. Experiments were only at thousands of atomic mass units a few years ago, though: https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8343 Unfortunately General Relativity can only have the whole gravitational influence of these molecules go through one or the other slits. However all of the quantum theories in my previous message have the distribution of the gravitational influence follow distribution of the matter, as one would expect.
Original comment A Physicist Who Denies That Dark Matter Exists

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