All research posts

In this third tutorial of the series on quantum particles in “boxes”, we show how the rate of quantum tunnelling of a particle through a barrier can be enhanced by placing identical boxes next to each other. Instead of the slow exponential decay that we found in the last tutorial, we find that the probability to find the particle in either box rapidly oscillates.

In this second tutorial of the the series on quantum particles in “boxes”, we try to confine a stationary particle inside a square potential well only to find it gets out. The wave nature of quantum particles produces reflection and transmission behaviour that we are more familiar with in the world of classical waves.

We begin this tutorial series on quantum particles in “boxes” by building the computational tools needed to explore the motion of particles in various confining potentials.  We need to do this because we are using Observable inside the browser to make things interactive - there are no quantum libraries for the browser like there are for Python (see QuTiP).

Today, we are introducing a new tutorial series that explores the quantum behaviour of particles moving under the influence of a confining potential - aka a “quantum box” 📦. Why? When particles are free, they can have any energy they like but when they are confined their energy can only take on discrete values, aka energy levels which is one of the hallmarks of quantum physics. It is therefore important to develop an understanding of how confined quantum particles behave.

In this fifth tutorial of the series we add another two state system (TSS) into the mix and, by following the same journey as in tutorial 4, we find that not only is boson emission and absorption possible but also the transfer of energy from one TSS to the other without any bosons being involved ? .

In this fourth tutorial of the series we flex our quantum muscles ?  and go deep into our fully quantised model of a particle interacting with a quantum field and find that, despite the increased complexity, knowledge from the semi-quantum model of tutorial 2 helps elucidate some surprisingly physics. Instead of the emission of a single large energy boson, we find that it

In this first tutorial from our nuclear repo, we take an introductory look at the energy inside nuclei by collecting and visualising the latest nuclear “binding energy” data from international labs. By playing around with these energy tables, we are able to answer quesions relating to well known as well as hypothetical nuclear reactions. In particular we focus on alpha decay and ask

In this third tutorial of the series we introducing the idea that the environment (aka the universe) which interacts with our two state system is a giant quantum system that can be described by an uncountably large number of possible states. Such a description is obviously outside the scope of a single notebook and probably outside the scope of a single human mind ? .

In this second tutorial of the series, we introduce a bit more realism into our model two state quantum system by attempting to connect it to the ”outside world”. The real world is of course frightfully complicated ?  and so we deliberately look at the simplest of models - the world as classical time dependent field.

We begin this tutorial series on two state systems by trying to gain some intuition for the dynamics of quantum systems. Solving the Schrödinger equation is one way go and with the help of the wonderful people at QuTiP we do this with a single line of code. We also gain intuition by looking at classical physics.