![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/a-quantum-gas-that-ref.jpg\" "\\"Despite")
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Despite being continually kicked and strongly interacting, the atoms no longer absorb energy. The system localizes in momentum space, the momentum distribution literally freezes, a remarkable phenomenon termed many-body dynamical localization (MBDL). Credit: Universit\u00e4t Innsbruck<\/p>\n
In everyday life, continuously doing work on a system is found to heat it up. Rubbing your hands together warms them. Hammering a piece of metal makes it hot. Even without knowing the equations, we learn from experience: driving any system, whether by stirring, pressing, or striking, leads to a rise in the system’s temperature.<\/p>\n
The same expectation holds for microscopic quantum systems: when we continuously excite a many-particle system, especially one with strong particle-particle interactions, we expect it to absorb energy and to heat up. But is this always the case, in particular at the quantum level<\/a>?<\/p>\n No, says an experiment carried out by a team from Hanns-Christoph N\u00e4gerl’s group at the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck. The research has been published<\/a> in Science.<\/p>\n Localized in momentum space<\/p>\n The researchers created a one-dimensional quantum fluid of strongly interacting atoms cooled to just a few nanokelvin above absolute zero temperature. They then exposed the atoms to a rapidly and periodically flashed-on lattice potential\u2014a kind of periodically “kicked” landscape made by laser light.<\/p>\n Under such conditions, one would expect the atoms to collectively absorb energy as time progresses, a bit like a couple of children on a trampoline being moved by only one child jumping. Yet the team observed something different. After a brief period of initial evolution, the atoms’ momentum distribution stopped spreading, and the system’s kinetic energy plateaued.<\/p>\n Despite being continually kicked and strongly interacting, the system no longer absorbed energy. It had localized in momentum space, a remarkable phenomenon termed many-body dynamical localization (MBDL).<\/p>\n “In this state, quantum coherence and many-body entanglement prevent the system from thermalizing and from showing diffusive behavior, even under sustained external driving,” explains Hanns-Christoph N\u00e4gerl. “The momentum distribution essentially freezes and retains whatever structure it has.”<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStability rooted in quantum mechanics<\/p>\n Yanliang Guo, the lead author of the study, is still puzzled: “We had initially expected that the atoms would start flying all around. Instead, they behaved in an amazingly orderly manner.”<\/p>\n Lei Ying, a theory collaborator from Zhejing University in Hangzhou, China, agrees: “This is not to our naive expectation. What’s striking is the fact that in a strongly driven and strongly interacting system, many-body coherence can evidently halt energy absorption. This goes against our classical intuition and reveals a remarkable stability rooted in quantum mechanics<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Ying adds that simulating such a seemingly simple system on a classical computer is a daunting task. “That’s why we need experiments. They go hand in hand with our theory simulations.”<\/p>\n Quantum coherence is crucial<\/p>\n To test the fragility of the MBDL phenomenon, the researchers introduced randomness into the driving sequence. Indeed, a rather small amount of disorder was already enough to destroy the localization effect and to restore diffusion: the momentum distribution became smeared out, the kinetic energy rose sharply, and the system absorbed energy continuously.<\/p>\n “This test highlighted that quantum coherence<\/a> is crucial for preventing thermalization in such driven many-body systems,” says Hanns-Christoph N\u00e4gerl.<\/p>\n The findings on MBDL are not just of fundamental interest. Understanding how quantum systems evade thermalization is a key step on the road toward building better quantum devices, including quantum simulators and computers, for which uncontrolled heating and decoherence are major obstacles.<\/p>\n “This experiment provides a precise and highly tunable way for exploring how quantum systems<\/a> can resist the pull of chaos,” says Guo. The results open a new window into the physics of driven quantum matter, and challenge long-held assumptions.<\/p>\n More information:<\/strong> \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProvided by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCitation<\/strong>: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYanliang Guo et al, Observation of many-body dynamical localization, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126\/science.adn8625<\/a>. www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.adn8625<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUniversity of Innsbruck<\/a>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA quantum gas that refuses to heat\u2014physicists observe many-body dynamical localization (2025, August 14)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tretrieved 14 August 2025
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-quantum-gas-physicists-body-dynamical.html\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
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