Three Balliol physicists were among a team of researchers at the University of Oxford to demonstrate a new type of quantum interaction for the first time, in findings published in Nature Physics.
Raghavendra Srinivas (Early Career Fellow in Physics 2023–2025), Professor David Lucas (Emeritus Fellow), and David Nadlinger (Balliol 2017) showed that increasingly complex forms of quantum ‘squeezing’ can be created and controlled in a single trapped ion. By demonstrating a fourth-order effect known as ‘quadsqueezing’, the team made previously inaccessible quantum effects experimentally observable.
The research focused on quantum harmonic oscillators – systems used to model everything from light waves to molecular vibrations. By engineering more complex interactions between particles of energy, the researchers were able to generate much richer quantum behaviour, including highly unusual quantum states that may have important applications in future quantum technologies and computation. Using a trapped ion system, the team demonstrated several advanced forms of squeezing, including quadsqueezing, at speeds more than 100 times faster than existing methods.
Commenting on the findings, co-author Raghavendra Srinivas, said: ‘Fundamentally, we have demonstrated a new type of interaction that lets us explore quantum physics in uncharted territory, and we are genuinely excited for the discoveries to come.’
You can read the publication, Băzăvan, et al. ‘Squeezing, trisqueezing and quadsqueezing in a hybrid oscillator-spin system’ in Nature Physics.