{"id":89465,"date":"2019-04-12T10:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-12T17:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/fluctuations-in-the-void"},"modified":"2019-04-12T10:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T17:22:21","slug":"fluctuations-in-the-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/fluctuations-in-the-void","title":{"rendered":"Fluc\u00adtu\u00ada\u00adtions in the void"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/fluctuations-in-the-void.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In quantum physics, a vacuum is not empty, but rather steeped in tiny fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Until recently it was impossible to study those vacuum fluctuations directly. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that allows them to characterize the fluctuations in detail.<\/p>\n<p>Emptiness is not really empty \u2013 not according to the laws of <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/quantum+physics\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">quantum physics<\/a>, at any rate. The vacuum, in which classically there is supposed to be \u201cnothing,\u201d teems with so-called <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/vacuum+fluctuations\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">vacuum fluctuations<\/a> according to quantum mechanics. Those are small excursions of an electromagnetic field, for instance, that average out to zero over time but can deviate from it for a brief moment. J\u00e9r\u00f4me Faist, professor at the Institute for Quantum Electronics at ETH in Zurich, and his collaborators have now succeeded in characterizing those vacuum fluctuations directly for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field have clearly visible consequences, and among other things, are responsible for the fact that an atom can spontaneously emit <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/light\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">light<\/a>,\u201d explains Ileana-Cristina Benea-Chelmus, a recently graduated Ph.D. student in Faists laboratory and first author of the study recently published in the scientific journal <i>Nature<\/i>. \u201cTo measure them directly, however, seems impossible at first sight. Traditional detectors for light such as photodiodes are based on the principle that light particles \u2013 and hence energy \u2013 are absorbed by the detector. However, from the vacuum, which represents the lowest energy state of a physical system, no further energy can be extracted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2019-04-fluctuations-void.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In quantum physics, a vacuum is not empty, but rather steeped in tiny fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Until recently it was impossible to study those vacuum fluctuations directly. Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method that allows them to characterize the fluctuations in detail. Emptiness is not really empty \u2013 not according to [\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-89465","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\/89465","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=89465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}