According to quantum electrodynamics, the theory describing interactions between light and electrically charged particles, a sufficiently strong electric field can, in principle, convert some of its energy into particles and their antimatter partners. A particle\u2019s antimatter partner has the same mass and, for electrically charged particles, the opposite electric charge.<\/p>\n
The creation of particle\u2013antiparticle pairs via an electric field and from the vacuum is known as the Schwinger effect. As the production of these pairs is strongly suppressed at electric field strengths that can be realized in a laboratory setting, observing this effect experimentally has so far proved challenging.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China and other institutions have now introduced an experiment that could be used to simulate and study this rare particle production process. Their experiment, outlined in a paper published<\/a> in Physical Review Letters<\/i>, entails representing particles and electric fields through the arrangement and motion of ultracold rubidium atoms trapped in an optical lattice<\/a>, a laser light-based pattern that can trap atoms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to quantum electrodynamics, the theory describing interactions between light and electrically charged particles, a sufficiently strong electric field can, in principle, convert some of its energy into particles and their antimatter partners. A particle\u2019s antimatter partner has the same mass and, for electrically charged particles, the opposite electric charge. The creation of particle\u2013antiparticle pairs [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246311","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\/246311","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}