Matter gets weird at the quantum scale, and among the oddities is the Efimov effect, a state in which the attractive forces between three or more atoms bind them together, even as they are excited to higher energy levels, while that same force is insufficient to bind two atoms. At Purdue University, researchers have completed the immense quantum calculation required to represent the Efimov effect in five atoms, adding to our fragmented picture of the most fundamental nature of matter.
The calculation, which applies across a broad range of physical problems — from a group of atoms being studied in a laser trap to the gases in a neutron star — contributes to our foundational understanding of matter and may lead to more efficient methods for confining atoms for study.
For Christopher Greene, the Albert Overhauser Distinguished Professor of Physics at Purdue, who modeled the problem with four atoms in 2009, the accomplishment has been 15 years in the making. Greene is a member of the Purdue Quantum Science and Engineering Institute. Research on the interactions between five atoms was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Understanding how five particles interact is a fundamental problem that we need to solve if we want to advance quantum applications beyond the lab,” said Greene, who led the research in collaboration with Michael Higgins, a postdoctoral research associate in Greene’s lab at the time of the research. “We were able to do this with a combination of faster computers, more parallel processing and a deeper understanding of the math, advances that took us a step farther than we could with the four-body problem in 2009.”
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