Towards Quantum Superposition of Living Organisms Oriol Romero-Isart, Mathieu L. Juan, Romain Quidant, J. Ignacio Cirac (Submitted on 8 Sep 2009) The most striking feature of quantum mechanics is the existence of superposition states, where an object appears to be in different situations at the same time. Up to now, the existence of such states has been tested with small objects, like atoms, ions, electrons and photons, and even with molecules. Recently, it has been even possible to create superpositions of collections of photons, atoms, or Cooper pairs. Current progress in optomechanical systems may soon allow us to create superpositions of even larger objects, like micro-sized mirrors or cantilevers, and thus to test quantum mechanical phenomena at larger scales. Here we propose a method to cool down and create quantum superpositions of the motion of sub-wavelength, arbitrarily shaped dielectric objects trapped inside a high--finesse cavity at a very low pressure. Our method is ideally suited for the smallest living organisms, such as viruses, which survive under low vacuum pressures, and optically behave as dielectric objects. This opens up the possibility of testing the quantum nature of living organisms by creating quantum superposition states in very much the same spirit as the original Schr\"odinger's cat "gedanken" paradigm. We anticipate our essay to be a starting point to experimentally address fundamental questions, such as the role of life in quantum mechanics, and differences between many-world and Copenhagen interpretations. Comments: 8 pages, 4 figures Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) Cite as: arXiv:0909.1469v1 [quant-ph]
Apparently, this is about actually putting a flue virus or possibly a water-bear (tiny - less than 1 mm) in the Schrodinger's Cat super- position using lasers. Water-bears can actually survive vacuum for a few days. The old thought experiments get ever closer to being made into real experiments. This one might answer the question of whether large objects aren't quantum because of interference from the general world or whether there is a size or mass for quantum behaviour as Penrose (Danger Mouse's best pal) suggests. I can't wait for the day I can approach some old mate blathering on about Schrodinger's Cat and accuse him of being a mindless philosopher before setting up my lasers and water-bears on the bar! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
