Clark Research Group

In a physics first, researchers have created beams of neutrons that travel in curves. The team created these Airy beams (named for English scientist George Airy) using a custom-built device. The beams could enhance neutrons’ ability to reveal useful information about materials ranging from pharmaceuticals to perfumes to pesticides—in part because the beams can bend around obstacles.

Physicists are exploring the opportunities that arise when the power of machine learning—a widely used approach in AI research—is brought to bear on quantum physics. Quantum physics often needs a description that approximately describes many interacting quantum particles. Two researchers at JQI presented new mathematical tools that will help researchers use machine learning to get such approximations and have identified new opportunities in quantum research where machine learning can be applied.

In this episode of Relatively Certain, JQI Adjunct Fellow Marianna Safronova and JQI Fellow Charles Clark return to discuss the limits of our understanding of gravity, and how new experiments with atom interferometers may be the key to not only a higher-precision understanding of gravity but also possible new physics.