This story was written by Shannon O. Wells for The University Times
In a lab in Pitt’s Old Engineering Building, a newly installed stainless-steel box called a dilution refrigerator can cool its contents to 20 millikelvin, or 20 thousandths of a degree above absolute zero.
“It’s not the kind you have in your kitchen,” noted Adam Leibovich, dean of the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences and former director of the joint Pitt-Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh Quantum Institute (PQI), of the fridge designed to reach “the coldest temperature the universe allows … much colder than even the temperature of deep space.”
At this temperature, “the quantum mechanical nature of matter becomes manifest. Particles like electrons or helium atoms do not look at all like classical objects we’re used to,” he continued. “They can be in two states at once. They can be in two places at once. They can pass through classically impenetrable barriers. They can become entangled, linked across space in ways that Einstein famously called ‘spooky action at a distance.’ New states of matter arise.”
Rather than some kind of metaphor, he emphasized, “this is physics. And it is the physics that Dietrich School faculty have been working to understand, harness and ultimately build with for decades.”
Leibovich shared such heady descriptions as part of a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Western Pennsylvania Quantum Information Core (WPQIC) Facility on May 4 in the Old Engineering Building. The event featured leaders such as Chancellor Joan Gabel and Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor, along with Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for Pitt Research.
You can read the full story on The University Times.