Physicists create new form of light

Newly observed optical state could enable quantum computing with photons

Scientists at MIT, Harvard University, and elsewhere have now demonstrated that photons can be made to interact — an accomplishment that could open a path toward using photons in quantum computing, if not in light sabers.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Physicists create new form of light

Newly observed optical state could enable quantum computing with photons

Scientists at MIT, Harvard University, and elsewhere have now demonstrated that photons can be made to interact — an accomplishment that could open a path toward using photons in quantum computing, if not in light sabers.

more…

Not sure what to say about this one.

> “when they shone a very weak laser beam through a dense cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms (the photons) travel about 100,000 times slower than (the speed of light)”.

Yes, that’s been observed before.

> “As a single photon moves through the cloud of rubidium atoms, it briefly lands on a nearby atom before skipping to another atom, like a bee flitting between flowers, until it reaches the other end. If another photon is simultaneously traveling through the cloud, it can also spend some time on (the same) rubidium atom, forming a polariton — a hybrid that is part photon, part atom.”

I have no doubt that that is correct. I think of it as follows, although my image may not be the correct one. An atom absorbs one photon to go into an excited state and the reemits that photon, the time between absorption and reemission is what slows the light down. If two or more photons are absorbed by that same atom then they will be reemitted in the same direction – linked. And that’s what they loosely call an interaction between photons.