Laser Pachinko Game Freezes Atomic Waves [News]

You've seen the game of pachinko--a small metal ball dropped into a thicket of horizontal pegs rattles its way to the bottom. What if the pachinko ball suddenly stopped halfway down, without any force holding it in place? That's essentially what researchers have now done using wavy quantum particles instead of metal balls and specially prepared light instead of a pachinko board.Researchers are pros at using laser beams to forcefully stop atoms in their tracks. But the effect demonstrated in the new experiments is different. According to quantum mechanics, a particle splits like a wave when it runs into a small enough object or other obstacle. [More]

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