{"id":229604,"date":"2026-01-22T21:02:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:02:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/a-new-optical-centrifuge-is-helping-physicists-probe-the-mysteries-of-superfluids"},"modified":"2026-01-22T21:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:02:53","slug":"a-new-optical-centrifuge-is-helping-physicists-probe-the-mysteries-of-superfluids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/a-new-optical-centrifuge-is-helping-physicists-probe-the-mysteries-of-superfluids","title":{"rendered":"A new optical centrifuge is helping physicists probe the mysteries of superfluids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-new-optical-centrifuge-is-helping-physicists-probe-the-mysteries-of-superfluids2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Physicists have used a new optical centrifuge to control the rotation of molecules suspended in liquid helium nano-droplets, bringing them a step closer to demystifying the behavior of exotic, frictionless superfluids.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the first demonstration of controlled spinning inside a superfluid\u2014researchers can now directly set the direction and frequency of the molecule\u2019s rotation, which is vital in studying how molecules interact with the quantum environment at various rotational frequencies. The <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/5jnj-97vs\" target=\"_blank\">method<\/a> was outlined this week by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and colleagues at the University of Freiburg in the journal <i>Physical Review Letters.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\u201cControlling the rotation of a molecule dissolved in any fluid is a challenge,\u201d said Dr. Valery Milner, associate professor with UBC Physics and Astronomy and lead author on the paper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Physicists have used a new optical centrifuge to control the rotation of molecules suspended in liquid helium nano-droplets, bringing them a step closer to demystifying the behavior of exotic, frictionless superfluids. It\u2019s the first demonstration of controlled spinning inside a superfluid\u2014researchers can now directly set the direction and frequency of the molecule\u2019s rotation, which is [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1617,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanotechnology","category-quantum-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229604","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\/732"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}