Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding the elusive ‘pseudogap’ phenomenon in quantum physics, which could lead to the realization of room-temperature superconductivity – a holy grail in condensed matter physics.
The Quantum Landscape Unleashed
One of these puzzles is the so-called ‘pseudogap’ in which quantum physics has been entangled with superconductivity for a long time. Some copper-and-oxygen materials superconduct at relatively high temperatures, but above this level they pass into a state called the pseudogap in which their behavior is erratic—sometimes metallic and sometimes more semiconducting.
It is known that the pseudogap occurs in every high-temperature superconductor that has ever been identified, but until now researchers did not know how or why it arises –whether it remains into the energy space of absolute zero temperature. Using a sophisticated computational method called diagrammatic Monte Carlo, the team has now elucidated how the pseudogap is born and grows, subtly changing how scientists view these interesting materials.
Cracking the Quantum Code
This task is far from easy, however — the electrons in such material become “intertwined”, due to a phenomenon called quantum entanglement which makes it impossible to consider them individually. Of course, these are all highly interactive systems with hundreds and in HTSCs thousands of electrons interacting with each other- well beyond the capabilities of any standard computational method to realistically simulate
To get around this difficulty, the researchers modeled electrons moving within a lattice systematically as slots in a chessboard-like lattice grid based on an approximation of the material: The Hubbard model is deliberately simple, allowing for simplicity and convenience. Application of the diagrammatic Monte Carlo algorithm allowed the team to model what happens as these materials cool toward absolute zero and show how the electrons interact to create the pseudogap.
Conclusion
The discovery of the pseudogap in high-temperature superconductors through our new method opens up a pathway to studying other quantum phase transitions where fluctuations are not strong and topological phenomena play an important role, such as in quantum gas simulation. The newfound ability to predict and control the way these materials interrelate brings scientists one step closer to achieving room-temperature superconductivity, a discovery that could transform the ways we transmit power, perform medical imaging scans and travel.
