{"id":131725,"date":"2021-12-03T15:24:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-03T23:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/physicists-just-gifted-us-quantum-spin-liquid-a-weird-new-state-of-matter"},"modified":"2021-12-03T15:24:26","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T23:24:26","slug":"physicists-just-gifted-us-quantum-spin-liquid-a-weird-new-state-of-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/physicists-just-gifted-us-quantum-spin-liquid-a-weird-new-state-of-matter","title":{"rendered":"Physicists just gifted us \u2018quantum spin liquid,\u2019 a weird new state of matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/physicists-just-gifted-us-quantum-spin-liquid-a-weird-new-state-of-matter3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This, combined with the esoteric rules of quantum mechanics, means that the spins are constantly in different positions at once. If you look at just a few particles, it\u2019s hard to tell whether you have a quantum liquid or, if you do, what properties it has.<\/p>\n<p>Quantum spin liquids were first theorized in 1973 by a physicist named <a href=\"https:\/\/physicstoday.scitation.org\/doi\/full\/10.1063\/PT.3.4505\">Philip W. Anderson<\/a>, and physicists have been trying to get their hands on this matter ever since. \u201cMany different experiments\u2026tried to create and observe this type of state. But this has actually turned out to be very challenging,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/lukin.physics.harvard.edu\/\">Mikhail Lukin<\/a>, a physicist at Harvard University and one of the paper authors.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers at Harvard had a new tool in their arsenal: what they call a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2021\/07\/harvard-led-physicists-create-256-qubit-programmable-quantum-simulator\/\">programmable quantum simulator<\/a>.\u201d Essentially, it\u2019s a machine that allows them to play with individual atoms. Using specifically focused laser beams, researchers can shuffle atoms around a two-dimensional grid like magnets on a whiteboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This, combined with the esoteric rules of quantum mechanics, means that the spins are constantly in different positions at once. If you look at just a few particles, it\u2019s hard to tell whether you have a quantum liquid or, if you do, what properties it has. Quantum spin liquids were first theorized in 1973 by [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}