{"id":220825,"date":"2025-08-23T20:03:31","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T01:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/new-quantum-navigation-device-uses-atoms-to-measure-acceleration-in-3d"},"modified":"2025-08-23T20:03:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T01:03:31","slug":"new-quantum-navigation-device-uses-atoms-to-measure-acceleration-in-3d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/new-quantum-navigation-device-uses-atoms-to-measure-acceleration-in-3d","title":{"rendered":"New quantum navigation device uses atoms to measure acceleration in 3D"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-quantum-navigation-device-uses-atoms-to-measure-acceleration-in-3d.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used a cloud of atoms chilled down to incredibly cold temperatures to simultaneously measure acceleration in three dimensions\u2014a feat that many scientists didn\u2019t think was possible.<\/p>\n<p>The device, a new type of atom \u201cinterferometer,\u201d could one day help people navigate submarines, spacecraft, cars and other vehicles more precisely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTraditional atom interferometers can only measure acceleration in a single dimension, but we live within a three-dimensional world,\u201d said Kendall Mehling, a co-author of the new study and a graduate student in the Department of Physics at CU Boulder. \u201cTo know where I\u2019m going, and to know where I\u2019ve been, I need to track my acceleration in all three dimensions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The researchers published their paper, titled \u201cVector atom accelerometry in an optical lattice,\u201d this month in the journal Science Advances. The team included Mehling; Catie LeDesma, a postdoctoral researcher in physics; and Murray Holland, professor of physics and fellow of JILA, a joint research institutebetween CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (More information about the new quantum GPS) <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>A new quantum device could one day help spacecraft travel beyond Earth\u2019s orbit or aid submarines as they navigate deep under the ocean with more precision than.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new study, physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder have used a cloud of atoms chilled down to incredibly cold temperatures to simultaneously measure acceleration in three dimensions\u2014a feat that many scientists didn\u2019t think was possible. The device, a new type of atom \u201cinterferometer,\u201d could one day help people navigate submarines, spacecraft, cars [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220825","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\/220825","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\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}