An international team of physicists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI has experimentally demonstrated the optical Magnus effect, revealing a shift in how laser light interacts with atoms. The discovery, similar to the physics behind a spinning ball’s curve, could impact the precision of quantum computers.
Researchers, led by Philip Leindecker from the PSI Center for Photon Science and the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich, observed that a tightly focused laser interacts most strongly with an ion slightly away from the beam’s center. This unexpected displacement is analogous to the Magnus effect, which causes a spinning table tennis ball to curve. The team used a single calcium ion held in an ion trap to map the laser light’s interaction.
The study, published in *Physical Review Letters*, found that the altered electromagnetic field structure of tightly focused laser light causes the strongest interaction to occur off-center. This effect could introduce errors in quantum computers that rely on lasers to control qubits. However, Leindecker suggests the forces generated could also be harnessed to couple qubits, potentially enabling more complex computations. “The forces it generates could be used to couple qubits to one another, enabling more complex computations,” he explains.
The researchers utilized a single calcium ion, held nearly motionless by electromagnetic fields in an ion trap, as a sensitive probe to detect the effect. Trapped ions are also used as qubits in quantum computing.
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