In the strange world of quantum physics, particles can be influenced by forces they never directly pass through. One famous example is the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) effect, in which electrons are altered by a magnetic field even when they avoid the field itself. Although scientists predicted the effect in 1959, proving it experimentally took more than 20 years because the changes in the electrons’ wave behavior were extremely difficult to measure directly.
Now, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), working with the University of Oslo and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, have recreated and expanded the AB effect using an unexpectedly simple setup: a water tank.
Their findings, published in Communications Physics, show that water waves traveling toward a swirling vortex from opposite directions create dramatic rotating patterns. These include one or more lines of temporarily still water that spread outward while slowly turning.
“This was something new and unexpected,” says Aditya Singh, a PhD student in the Nonlinear and Non-equilibrium Physics Unit and co-first author of the study. “That’s what makes this fluid analogue system so valuable. It reveals topological effects—wave behaviors that occur across the whole system—that can’t be seen in quantum experiments.”
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