Mentally replace the word "Electric Field" with RF when you're reading it, and you'll get it.
Also, according to the paper at least, in theory, laser interferometers can be used to sense RF... which leads to the idea that perhaps the entire RF spectrum, viewed as a single point in time snapshot, looks like an interference pattern of all sorts of waves at all sorts of wavelengths...
From a series of those then, Fourier Transforms, ran over the whole dataset, could be used to extract individual waves...
Also, there's some kind of vague relationship here with holograms too, because holograms are in effect, interference patterns of two beams of laser light...
Re:Scientists create quantum sensor that covers entire radio...
by awelkie on Saturday March 21, 2020 @01:06PM
(#22647944)
This seems like it could be useful for UWB communications or a very precise radar. Is it easy to generate an EM impulse with similar bandwidth? I guess the difficulty is to do all signal processing in the optical domain, since it's impractical to digitize all of that spectrum.
Re:Scientists create quantum sensor that covers entire radio...
by gus_massa on Saturday March 21, 2020 @09:38AM
(#22646398)
No. Any signal that reach here from other star system will be too faint, and you need a huge antena to recollect enough power to detect the signal over the noise. The discovery is very overhyped in the press article (as usual).
Also, the detector is small, but it need to be cooled to very low temperatures, so the whole system will be not as small as the article describe.
Re:Scientists create quantum sensor that covers entire radio...
by Tuna-Fish on Saturday March 21, 2020 @10:35AM
(#22646737)
The exact element does not actually matter here.
What matters is that the atoms in question have some of their electrons in ridiculously highly excited orbitals. This dramatically changes how the system works, and in fact if you have one highly excited electron and many tighly bound core electrons, you can approximate the system by modeling it as hydrogen, regardless of what element it actually is, due to how well the core electrons shield the outer electron from the core.
Re:Scientists create quantum sensor that covers entire radio...
by lioeters on Saturday March 21, 2020 @01:52PM
(#22648319)
> approximate the system by modeling it as hydrogen, regardless of what element it actually is
That's fascinating. I found corresponding statements in a Wikipedia article:
> Rydberg atoms have a number of peculiar properties including an exaggerated response to electric and magnetic fields, long decay periods and electron wavefunctions that approximate, under some conditions, classical orbits of electrons about the nuclei.
> The core electrons shield the outer electron from the electric field of the nucleus such that, from a distance, the electric potential looks identical to that experienced by the electron in a hydrogen atom.
Assessment of Rydberg Atoms for Wideband Electric Field Sensing
https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.00646
Mentally replace the word "Electric Field" with RF when you're reading it, and you'll get it.
Also, according to the paper at least, in theory, laser interferometers can be used to sense RF... which leads to the idea that perhaps the entire RF spectrum, viewed as a single point in time snapshot, looks like an interference pattern of all sorts of waves at all sorts of wavelengths...
From a series of those then, Fourier Transforms, ran over the whole dataset, could be used to extract individual waves...
Also, there's some kind of vague relationship here with holograms too, because holograms are in effect, interference patterns of two beams of laser light...
Now I suppose this device is only able to passively listen to a signal but it cannot transmit on its own, right?
Also, the detector is small, but it need to be cooled to very low temperatures, so the whole system will be not as small as the article describe.
Think of putting your smart phone camera up to a telescope eyepiece.
What matters is that the atoms in question have some of their electrons in ridiculously highly excited orbitals. This dramatically changes how the system works, and in fact if you have one highly excited electron and many tighly bound core electrons, you can approximate the system by modeling it as hydrogen, regardless of what element it actually is, due to how well the core electrons shield the outer electron from the core.
That's fascinating. I found corresponding statements in a Wikipedia article:
> Rydberg atoms have a number of peculiar properties including an exaggerated response to electric and magnetic fields, long decay periods and electron wavefunctions that approximate, under some conditions, classical orbits of electrons about the nuclei.
> The core electrons shield the outer electron from the electric field of the nucleus such that, from a distance, the electric potential looks identical to that experienced by the electron in a hydrogen atom.