Vivid fusion: scientists have discovered a new form of light

2018-02-17 10:02

Vivid fusion: scientists have discovered a new form of light
How little we know about the light!

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If you turn on two flashlights and cross their beams, nothing much happens. The reason is that photons do not interact among themselves. However, if this were not so, the particles of light can attract and repel each other like normal atoms? Perhaps, in this case, the rays of light meet, reinforce each other and merge into a single luminous flux, reports Rus.Media.

It seems empty fantasies, the implementation of which is impossible under the existing laws of physics. However, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of technology has forced the photons to interact.

The first successful tests in 2013, when it was first recorded interaction between pairs of photons. In the new work, scientists are interested in, it is possible to associate three or more light particles. To do this, they have missed a very weak laser beam through a dense cloud of ultracold rubidium atoms.

The output photons were combined in pairs and triplets. Unlike photons which have no mass and move at the speed of 300 000 km/s, these structures have gained the mass of the particle electron and slowed down approximately in 100 000 times.