Dear Gisteron,
Gisteron wrote: There is no such thing as a "light molecule". Molecules are chemical compounds. Light is not a chemical element.... are amplified...Source please
Gisteron wrote: Source, please... Maybe my understanding is outdated. I thought until now that matter is something that at least has rest mass, albeit that rest maybe a fuzzy word depending on how deep one wants to dive. Is this projected matter actually matter? How does it respond to force fields?
Thanks for your response, here is a complex answer and just a little bit of an update on physics regarding your question about light not having molecular structure. In a pioneering study according to the research, the research team has “managed to coax photons into binding together to form molecules,” thus creating ‘photonic molecules.’
Lukin said in a press release, “Most of the properties of light we know about originate from the fact that photons are massless, and that they do not interact with each other. What we have done is create a special type of medium in which photons interact with each other so strongly that they begin to act as though they have mass, and they bind together to form molecules. This type of photonic bound state has been discussed theoretically for quite a while, but until now it hadn't been observed."
I am unsure if the Opening Post is 'Plasma' or 'Photonic Molecules'. However Plasma would be attracted to Magnetic force field. And photonic molecules attracted by Gravity.
Prof. Lukin added, "It's not an in-apt analogy to compare this to light sabers. When these photons interact with each other, they're pushing against and deflect each other. The physics of what's happening in these molecules is similar to what we see in the movies."
Gisteron wrote: these photons exchange energy with molecules in the air... Photons can be absorbed or emitted. They cannot "exchange" energy with anything because they are energy and cannot be split or shared.
When Light slows down it is doing so because it exchanges energy with its environment. Light can be emitted from a variety of sources. The researcher utilized lasers to fire single photons into the atom clouds of rubidium. As the photon dances through its course, it slows down, sending atoms some energy, but exits the clouds with full energy. The researchers placed rubidium atoms into a vacuum chamber and froze it to a few degrees above zero degrees to create these photonic molecules.
In the next experiment, researchers began firing groups of two photons into the atom cloud promptly. The researchers found out that as the photons exit, they seemed like a single molecule. As explained, the two photons would dance through the atomic cloud like a single molecule and keeping that formation even after going out of the cloud is due to an effect called Rydberg blockade.
This breakthrough, with sadness to say, is not designed to act as a weapon for a more civilized age but for the future of quantum computing.
Here is a super complex answer: "The fundamental properties of light derive from its constituent particles—massless quanta (photons) that do not interact with one another. However, it has long been known that the realization of coherent interactions between individual photons, akin to those associated with conventional massive particles, could enable a wide variety of novel scientific and engineering applications. Scientists have demonstrated a quantum nonlinear medium inside which individual photons travel as massive particles with strong mutual attraction, such that the propagation of photon pairs is dominated by a two-photon bound state.
They achieved this through dispersive coupling of light to strongly interacting atoms in highly excited Rydberg states. We measure the dynamical evolution of the two-photon wavefunction using time-resolved quantum state tomography, and demonstrate a conditional phase shift exceeding one radian, resulting in polarization-entangled photon pairs. Particular applications of this technique include all-optical switching, deterministic photonic quantum logic and the generation of strongly correlated states of light. Also Professor Menon and his team were able to discover half-light, half-matter particles in atomically thin semiconductors (thickness ~ a millionth of a single sheet of paper) consisting of two-dimensional (2D) layer of molybdenum and sulfur atoms arranged similar to graphene. They sandwiched this 2D material in a light trapping structure to realize these composite quantum particles".
adder wrote: Looking at the OP, a way to make a lightsaber perhaps!?
An array of them drawing spirals upwards to a defined end point, enough emiiters going quick enough and it could appear solid - a blade of plasma!! It would be hollow and they'd just pass through each other.... so it sort of defeats the point I guess
Interesting theory Adder ceartinly possible yes we could create a light sabre but Light Sabre is in its infancy. Still worth a look still that type of light manipulation is still 'far out there'.
Story Source:
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by City College of New York. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. There a three research papers quoted in both posts and was published in the Sept. 25 issue of the online journal Nature.
Source Click Here Journal
Note: You need Membership to the Journal and join their mailing list to see the research....to the sum of £99 to read
The study was funded by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center -- Center for Photonic and Multiscale Nanomaterials.
Prof. Mikhail Lukin from Harvard University and Prof. Vladan Vuletic from MIT worked together in creating a new state of matter showing a very close similarity to the lightsaber Anakin Skywalker used to defend himself in Star Wars.
Xiaoze Liu, Tal Galfsky, Zheng Sun, Fengnian Xia, Erh-chen Lin, Yi-Hsien Lee, Stéphane Kéna-Cohen, Vinod M. Menon. Strong light–matter coupling in two-dimensional atomic crystals. Nature Photonics, 2014; 9 (1): 30 DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2014.304
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