In a groundbreaking study published in Science, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science have uncovered a previously unknown type of vortex formed by the interaction of photons. The discovery, made by Dr. Lee Drori, Dr. Bankim Chandra Das, Tomer Danino Zohar, and Dr. Gal Winer from Prof. Ofer Firstenberg's laboratory, sheds new light on the fundamental understanding of vortices and may contribute to improving data processing in quantum computing.
Vortices are a common physical phenomenon found in various natural and artificial systems, from galaxies and hurricanes to cups of tea and draining bathtubs. They are characterized by circular flow around a stationary axis and typically form when fast-flowing substances encounter slower-moving areas. However, the vortices discovered in this study are unique, as they are created by the rare interaction between photons.
To enable photon interaction, the researchers created a distinctive environment: a 10-centimeter glass cell containing a dense gas cloud of rubidium atoms, measuring only 1 millimeter in length. As photons pass through this cloud, they excite the atoms into Rydberg states, causing one of the electrons in each atom to move in an orbit 1,000 times wider than the diameter of an unexcited atom. This creates an electric field that influences the surrounding atoms, effectively turning them into an imaginary "glass ball" that alters the speed of subsequent photons.
When two photons pass close to each other in this environment, they move at different speeds than they would if traveling alone. This change in speed leads to a shift in the positions of the peaks and valleys of the photons' waves, known as a phase shift. In the optimal case for quantum computing, the phase shift reaches 180 degrees, resulting in a complete inversion of the peaks and valleys.
As the researchers increased the density of the gas cloud and brought the photons closer together, they observed an unprecedented phenomenon: the formation of a pair of vortices when the photons were a certain distance apart. In these vortices, the photons completed a 360-degree phase shift, with almost no photons present at the center, similar to the dark center of other known vortices.
Further investigation revealed that the two vortices observed when measuring two photons are part of a three-dimensional vortex ring generated by the mutual influence of three photons. This finding demonstrates the striking similarity between the newly discovered photonic vortices and those observed in other environments, such as the vortex rings created by dragging a plate through water or smoke rings.
While the discovery of photonic vortices has captured the attention of the scientific community, the researchers remain focused on their original goal of improving quantum data processing. The next stage of the study will involve firing photons into each other and measuring the phase shift of each photon separately. Depending on the strength of these phase shifts, the photons could potentially be used as qubits, the basic units of information in quantum computing, offering a wider range of values compared to the binary 0 and 1 of classical computing.
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