Simplex sigillum veri: Single atoms may settle quantum queries (Prof. P. Toschek)

  • Date: Nov 10, 2015
  • Time: 02:30 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Prof. Dr. Peter E. Toschek, Institut für Laser-Physik, Universität Hamburg
  • Room: Herbert Walther Lecture Hall
  • Host: MPQ
Modern atomism evolved on the basis of observations of matter’s macroscopic features.

Early in the twentieth century, cloud chamber traces and scintillograms merely offered transitory post-mortem images of quantum objects that lacked reproducibility. More recently, individual atomic ions have been prepared for extended and repeated observation and manipulation.

Moreover, quantum measurements on individual objects are unique: They result in eigenvalues, not in expectation values, classical quantities that appear as the outcome from measured ensembles. Consequently, those quantum measurements offer more than just recordings of unprecedented precision. They even allow insights — sometimes unexpected or counter-intuitive ones — in the very nature of quantum interactions and in the peculiarities of quantum measurement. This potential is laid open in characteristic examples.

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