Scientists have photographed a quantum "dance" in a superconductor for the first time.

For the first time, an international team of scientists has obtained images of the paired behavior of atoms in a system simulating a superconductor, and found that the pairs move in a coordinated manner, like partners in a dance. This contradicts the classical theory of superconductivity. This was reported on April 27 in the journal Science Daily.

"Our experiment has shown that there is something qualitatively missing in this theory," said Tarik Efsa, head of the experimental group at the Castler-Brossel Laboratory at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris.

The scientists worked with a gas of lithium atoms cooled to several billionths of a degree above absolute zero. At such extreme temperatures, atoms behave like fermions—the same category of particles as electrons—and serve as an ideal model for studying superconductivity.

The images showed that the paired atoms were not randomly distributed, but maintained a certain distance from each other — like dancers avoiding collisions on the dance floor. Theorist Shiwei Zhang from the Flatiron Institute of the Simons Foundation and his colleagues confirmed this behavior using quantum modeling. According to Zhang, the classical theory of BCS describes pairs of electrons as independent objects, while the new data demonstrate their interaction.

"BCS theory looks at the situation outside the ballroom: We hear music and see dancers coming out, but we don't know what's going on inside. Our approach is a wide—angle camera inside the hall. Now we see how the dancers choose partners and make sure not to hurt each other," Efsa described the opening.

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In the magazine Phys.org On April 22, it was reported that Cornell University scientists had found out why a rare crystal, ruthenium chloride, behaved as if exotic particles lived inside it, capable of revolutionizing quantum computing. It turned out that there was a completely different physics behind it.