Scientists recreate a bizarre quantum effect that stops a particle cold

Oxford physicists have recreated a bizarre quantum effect in which a particle responds to a magnetic field without ever traveling through it. Using a hybrid quantum computer, they demonstrated how introducing a simulated magnetic flux could completely halt a particle’s movement through quantum interference. The experiment brings a decades-old prediction into a new setting where matter and quantum fields influence one another.

Scientists recreate a bizarre quantum effect that stops a particle cold. Spinning tops represent qubits and springs represent quantum oscillators, together forming the plaquette geometry studied in the experiment and extending into a repeating lattice pattern. The central loop is pierced by an Aharonov-Bohm flux, highlighting one of the main results of the work.

Gabriel Araneda and Dr Oana Bazavan A particle does not have to pass through a magnetic field to be influenced by it. That surprising feature of quantum physics has now been recreated by researchers at the University of Oxford, who used a hybrid quantum computer to demonstrate how an invisible magnetic influence can bring a simulated particle’s movement to a complete stop. The experiment reproduced a phenomenon known as the Aharonov-Bohm effect, in which a charged particle traveling around a region containing magnetic flux experiences a measurable change in its quantum state, even though its path never takes it through the magnetic field itself.