Tweezers made of light could illuminate the quantum twin paradox

Tweezers made of light could illuminate the quantum twin paradox

Tweezers made of light could illuminate the quantum twin paradox

Tweezers made from laser beams can hold and move a single atom

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The way gravity affects the quantum realm has so far remained mysterious. But an experiment that uses lasers as a pair of tweezers could let researchers assess how Earth’s gravitational pull affects an atom that ticks like a clock.

At extremely cold temperatures – think billionths of a degree above absolute zero – quantum effects make atoms behave like “matter waves” rather than particles. Physicists have long taken advantage of this: by colliding different matter waves and measuring the resulting ripples, they can identify the forces…

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