With his research on quantum states in the realm between order and disorder, Professor Jörg Schmiedmayer's work has raised quite a stir; ultra cold atom clouds with a high degree of order approach a disordered thermal equilibrium. During this transition they spend some time in an astonishingly stable intermediate state. With a new ERC Grant, Schmiedmayer will now dig deeper into the physics of non-equilibrium phenomena in many-particle quantum systems.
How do quantum states melt?
Every day we can see transitions into a thermal equilibrium -- for instance when an icicle heats up and melts. When this happens, the entropy (a measure for the disorder in a physical system) increases and information about the system is lost. The ultra cold Bose-Einstein condensates created at the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ) also approach a thermal equilibrium. In doing so, they go from a state which can also be described in terms of quantum physics to a state in which the quantum properties of the particles do not play an important role any more. In between, however, a surprisingly stable intermediate state can be found -- the so-called "pre-thermalized state."
To read more, click here.