2023-07-24 18:19:14
Par Tristan Vey
Posted 4 hours ago, Updated 4 hours ago
It took the researchers three years to implement the experiment they had imagined. Charles Roques-Carmes, Yannick Salamin
Scientists have developed an optical device to control random fluctuations in the quantum vacuum.
In quantum mechanics, the vacuum is not completely empty. He is agitated with very slight « fluctuations » which spontaneously give rise to pairs of so-called “virtual” particles, because they annihilate as quickly as they appeared. There are different ways of representing the quantum vacuum, but perhaps the simplest is to imagine it, in two dimensions, as a very fine foam on the surface of the water.
Looking from a distance, the surface seems very flat, it is very “empty”. By approaching a little, you see lots of small defects that keep agitating it in a perfectly random way. If you took the average or the sum of the tiny bumps and hollows that dot it at a given moment, the result would be zero. This fundamental property of quantum mechanics is most often an annoyance for physicists, because it disturbs measurements. We talk about quantum “noise”.
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