Strange Bird-Like Behavior In Atoms: Researchers Unveil New Magnetic Properties In Quantum Systems
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Researchers at the University of Tokyo and RIKEN have discovered that ferromagnetism can be induced by increasing particle motility in quantum systems, where repulsive forces between atoms maintain the order.
Researchers Kazuaki Takasan and Kyogo Kawaguchi from the University of Tokyo, along with Kyosuke Adachi from RIKEN, Japan's largest comprehensive research institution, have shown that ferromagnetism, an ordered state of atoms, can be induced by increasing particle motility and that repulsive forces between atoms are sufficient to maintain it.
The discovery not only extends the concept of active matter to quantum systems but also contributes to the development of novel technologies that rely on the magnetic properties of particles, such as magnetic memory and quantum computing. The findings were published in the journal Physical Review Research.
Flocking birds, swarming bacteria, cellular flows. These are all examples of active matter, a state in which individual agents, such as birds, bacteria, or cells, self-organize. The agents change from a disordered to an ordered state in what is called a phase transition." As a result, they move together in an organized fashion without an external controller.
Previous studies have shown that the concept of active matter can apply to a wide range of scales, from nanometers (biomolecules) to meters (animals)," says Takasan, the first author. However, it has not been known whether the physics of active matter can be applied usefully in the quantum regime. We wanted to fill in that gap."
[...] It was surprising at first to find that the ordering can appear without elaborate interactions between the agents in the quantum model," Takasan reflects on the finding. It was different from what was expected based on biophysical models."
The researcher took a multi-faceted approach to ensure their finding was not a fluke. Thankfully, the results of computer simulations, mean-field theory, a statistical theory of particles, and mathematical proofs based on linear algebra were all consistent. This strengthened the reliability of their finding, the first step in a new line of research.
The extension of active matter to the quantum world has only recently begun, and many aspects are still open," says Takasan. We would like to further develop the theory of quantum active matter and reveal its universal properties."
Reference: Activity-induced ferromagnetism in one-dimensional quantum many-body systems" by Kazuaki Takasan, Kyosuke Adachi and Kyogo Kawaguchi, 26 April 2024, Physical Review Research. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.023096
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.