Exploring the Limits of Quantum Physics with Levitating Spheres

Lecture

The striking and counterintuitive phenomena of quantum physics has been dazzling scientists since the last century. In the last decades impressive experiments have shown an exquisite control of a plethora of microscopic degrees of freedom in Nature, such as in photons, electrons, atoms, molecules, etc. Quantum physics is not only a fundamentally interesting theory, but also a door-opener to fascinating applications such as quantum information processing, quantum simulation, and quantum metrology. Yet, quantum physics has been explored only in a limited parameter regime: where are the boundaries, if any, of the validity of quantum physics? In this unexplored regime, are there new groundbreaking possibilities awaiting to be discovered? In this lecture I will attempt to address some of these questions in the context of theoretical proposals, as well as experiments aiming at bringing levitating microspheres in the quantum regime. I will discuss some challenging and ambitious goals, such as how to prepare quantum superposition states of a sphere delocalized over distances larger than its diameter, which would explore the regime where the quantum superposition principle has been predicted to break down, or how to measure gravitational forces at very short distances where deviations of the Newton law are predicted to occur.

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