HomePhysicsQuantum heat pump: A new measuring tool for physicists

Quantum heat pump: A new measuring tool for physicists

The researchers found no evidence of the spinning fins impacting the levitated film after repeating the experiment, ruling out the chameleon theory as an explanatory candidate for dark energy. They also contend that their methodology emphasizes the significance of rigorous, lab-based testing in validating or discrediting theoretical research. They believe their approach could be applied to other endeavors.

When you combine two objects of different temperatures, such as a warm bottle of white wine and a cold chill pack, heat usually flows in one direction, from hot (the wine) to cold (the chill pack) (the chill pack). And if you wait long enough, the two will reach the same temperature, a process known in physics as reaching equilibrium: a balance between heat flow in one direction and heat flow in the other.

If you are willing to put in the effort, you can upset this equilibrium and cause heat to flow in the “wrong” direction. This is the same principle that your refrigerator uses to keep your food cold, as well as efficient heat pumps that can steal heat from the cold air outside to warm your home. Gary Steele and his co-authors demonstrate a quantum analogue of a heat pump in their paper, causing elementary quantum particles of light known as photons to move “against the flow” from a hot to a cold object.

Signals from dark matter

While the researchers had previously used their device as a cold bath for hot radio-frequency photons, they have now successfully turned it into an amplifier as well. The device is more sensitive to radio-frequency signals because of the built-in amplifier, just as amplified microwave signals from superconducting quantum processors are.

“It’s very exciting because we’re getting closer to the quantum limit of measuring radio frequency signals, which are difficult to measure otherwise. This new measuring tool could have a variety of applications, including the search for dark matter “According to Steele.

A quantum heat exchanger

The photon pressure circuit is constructed from superconducting inductors and capacitors on a silicon chip cooled to a few millidegrees above absolute zero. While this may appear to be very cold, for some photons in the circuit, it is extremely hot, and they are excited with thermal energy. Using photon pressure, the researchers can couple these excited photons to higher frequency cold photons, allowing them to cool the hot photons into their quantum ground state in previous experiments.

The authors add a new twist in this new work: by sending an extra signal into the cold circuit, they are able to create a motor that amplifies the cold photons and heats them up. Simultaneously, the additional signal “pump” photons preferentially in one direction between the two circuits. The researchers are able to cool photons in one part of the circuit to a colder temperature than photons in the other part of the circuit by pushing photons harder in one direction than the other, resulting in a quantum version of a heat pump for photons in a superconducting circuit.

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