Cold atoms and matter waves is a research area focused on the quantum behavior of dilute atomic gases cooled to microkelvin or nanokelvin temperatures, where their de Broglie wavelengths become comparable to interparticle spacing and wave-like properties dominate. It encompasses the production and manipulation of Bose–Einstein condensates and degenerate Fermi gases, coherent control of atomic matter waves using optical and magnetic potentials, and exploration of many-body quantum phenomena in engineered lattices and traps. The field underpins precision metrology, quantum simulation, and interferometry by exploiting long coherence times, tunable interactions, and highly controllable external degrees of freedom of ultracold atomic ensembles.
Adelaide University researchers have successfully tested a new type of portable atomic clock at sea for the first time, using technology that could help power the next generation of navigation, communications and scientific ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 14, 2026
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Physicists in China have simulated the effect of "false vacuum decay": a phenomenon believed to play out constantly in the seemingly empty expanses of space, and which one theory even suggests could bring an abrupt end to ...
A new study, published in Physical Review Letters, reports that scientists have successfully imaged the formation of cavity-induced density waves induced by laser light in an ultracold quantum gas. Previously, only global ...
Researchers at ETH Zurich have realized particularly stable quantum logical operations with qubits made of neutral atoms. Since these operations, called quantum gates, are based on geometric phases, they are extremely robust ...
Quantum Physics
Apr 8, 2026
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21
Quantum mechanics tells us that a particle can never be perfectly still. But how precisely can it be oriented? A research team at the University of Vienna, together with colleagues at TU Wien and Ulm University, has now cooled ...
Optics & Photonics
Apr 6, 2026
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Understanding how genes are switched on and off in specific cell types remains one of biology's central challenges. While AI has made major progress in decoding the regulatory logic of DNA, applying these approaches across ...
Biotechnology
Apr 2, 2026
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For the first time, an international team of physicists has successfully harnessed a rare orbital transition in atoms of ytterbium to create a new type of atomic clock that is both highly precise and extremely sensitive to ...
Quantum computers of the future may be closer to reality thanks to new research from Caltech and Oratomic, a Caltech-linked start-up company. Theorists and experimentalists teamed up to develop a new approach for reducing ...
Quantum Physics
Apr 1, 2026
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43
Scientists in the Riccio College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of California Santa Barbara have demonstrated key laser and ion trap components necessary to help drastically shrink ...
Optics & Photonics
Mar 30, 2026
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43
Quantum physicists at ANU have observed atoms entangled in motion. "It's really weird for us to think that this is how the universe works," says Dr. Sean Hodgman from the ANU Research School of Physics. "You can read about ...
General Physics
Mar 30, 2026
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