Exploring the quantum-classical boundary
At the heart of modern physics lies a circle to be squared. Experiment tells us time and time again that the world at its most fundamental works according to the counter-intuitive laws of quantum mechanics. And yet the macroscopic world we live in seems solidly classical.
Quantum optomechanics could help us resolve this paradox. It uses the pressure of confined photons, the quantum-mechanical particles of light, to manipulate the properties of mechanical objects ranging from the nanoscale to the macroscale.
Recent experiments have, for example, demonstrated how laser cooling - a technique initially invented to cool clouds of atoms - can be used to curb the vibrations of small mechanical devices. This opens up the fascinating prospect of mechanical resonators operating at the frigid temperatures where quantum effects come into play.
Such quantum resonators would have applications in sensing, metrology and quantum information processing, but what I find most intriguing is the possibility that an object visible to the naked eye can be put into a quantum superposition between two separated locations - so it is both here and there. Testing the predictions of quantum theory in a completely new regime of size and mass will bring fresh insights into where the boundary between the classical and the quantum worlds lies - and perhaps even to the great unfinished business of unifying quantum physics and gravity. Markus Aspelmeyer
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