20 Year Quest Finally Complete!
A 20 year long search for a quantum zoo of particles is complete!
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After twenty years, we have finally found the molecule that will change quantum science forever!
People started searching for a "zoo" of similar quantum particles, all being ultracold, meaning they are just barely above absolute zero, the coldest that anything can get.
20 years after the search started we have finally found the last piece of the puzzle: a butterfly shaped molecule created in a lab. This opens up a whole range of opportunities for us in the quantum world, because with this final puzzle piece we can now attempt to make even more elusive atoms, atoms with negative charge, also known as anions! If we could find a way to make these anions ultracold as well, then we could do all kinds of things such as testing the laws of particle physics, but none of our current cooling methods have worked so far.
How exactly did they even make the molecule in the first place?
The process of making the molecule was extremely difficult, and took many, many weeks, with one member stating that it is like looking for something on a road, that is a kilometer away, and by inspecting one millimeter at a time.
The way they did this was by cooling a cloud of rubidium molecules to some millionths of a degree above absolute zero. Then, using lasers, they pushed the valence (outermost) electron further away from the nucleus thus enlarging it, and they repeated this with many of the atoms. Since some of the atoms are ultracold, and some extra large, they could manipulate a giant atom to combine with a normal ultracold atom, to finally create the ultracold butterfly molecule, completing the twenty year long search for all the particles of the quantum zoo!
This new molecule was named the butterfly molecule, due to the arrangement of its electrons looking a bit like a butterflies wings.
All things considered, while more research needs to be done to produce ultracold anions, if done this will unlock a new door full of potential for us in the quantum world.
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single word." — Niels Bohr
No AI used in the making of this article.
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