Science: they manage to predict the quantum leap and to "save" the Schrödinger cat

A group of researchers was able to monitor in a laboratory of Yale University (USA) the behavior of a radioactive artificial atom in the closed system described by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger. They did it by means of three microwave generators.

Schrödinger is the scientist who, in the 1930s, imagined the experience of placing an imaginary cat in a sealed box with a source of particles and a vial of poison, all imaginary as well. If the cooked particle breaks, the bottle containing the poison will break, causing the death of the cat; but otherwise the bottle will remain intact and the cat will stay alive. The physicist was to involve a cat in the experiment, an animal known for its ability to jump suddenly and unexpectedly, to make more tangible a theory of quantum physics, that of superposition.

After firing the particle, the cat locked in the Schrödinger box is alive and dead at the same time (overlapping states) until someone opens it to check it. It is only then that it will suddenly change in state when alive or dead. According to the idea of ​​the Austrian, the change – or quantum leap – occurs randomly, with a probability of 50%, the same probability that the fired atom decays.

Yale scientists said in a statement that they were able to predict the behavior of the atom and even reverse the quantum leap, which would save the life of the imaginary victim of the disease. ;experience.

Previously, it was considered that cat jumps were unpredictable. However, the main author of the study, the physicist Zlatko Minev, said: "Despite this, we wanted to know if it would be possible to obtain a harbinger of an imminent jump ".

Neither abrupt nor completely random

The experiment is inspired by a recent theoretical prediction that contradicts the opinion of nuclear physics patriarch Niels Bohr of Denmark that the disintegration of a radioactive atom and the jump of the cat are brutal and totally random. But now, this new opportunity to observe the atom with unprecedented efficiency thanks to microwaves has shown that this is not the case, say Minev and his team.

The microwaves not only follow the atom, but they shake it and, in response, the atom emits a small quantum signal in the form of the presence or absence of detection photons. Specialists consider this phenomenon as a harbinger of quantum leap. Minev believes that he can "take advantage not only to capture the jump, but also to reverse it".

The team reported on its discovery and conclusions in an article published June 3 in the digital version of the journal Nature.

RT.