Breakthroughs of the Year: 2023

Harmonic oscillators are the simplest systems studied in physics— so simple that they have the same dynamics (i.e. how they change in time) in both classical and quantum theory. For this reason, it was believed that more complicated dynamics are required to demonstrate interesting quantum effects. Surprisingly, PhD Students Pooja Jayachandran and Zaw Lin Htoo and Prof Valerio Scarani found that quantum entanglement can be demonstrated just by observing the centre of the two oscillators. The test requires only measuring the position of the two oscillators at one out of three possible times.