Magnons in a sphere squeezed to quantum limit ⚡ экспресс
For the first time, scientists have achieved quantum squeezing of magnons—collective spin waves in magnets. The experiment used a millimeter-sized sphere of yttrium iron garnet (YIG), where strong interaction with a superconducting qubit via a resonator created nonlinearity, allowing the suppression of quantum noise below the vacuum level (average magnon number <1). Wigner tomography revealed quadrature squeezing with a variance of ~0.8 relative to vacuum (~1 dB). This opens the door to quantum magnonics with potential for ultra-precise measurements.
There is always noise in the microworld. Even in absolute emptiness, something trembles, and these quantum fluctuations interfere with precise measurements. But noise can be "squeezed," like a balloon: if you squeeze it from the sides, one part gets thinner while the other bulges. This way, the overall uncertainty, discovered by Heisenberg, doesn't vanish but gets redistributed. That's exactly the squeezing used in detectors like LIGO, for which Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Prize.
Now physicists have squeezed not light, but magnons—collective waves in a magnetic material. A tiny sphere of yttrium iron garnet—the same material found in cell towers to clean signals—was placed in a resonant cavity and coupled with a quantum qubit. This allowed such precise control of the oscillations that on average, there wasn't even one full wave inside the sphere. A special technique (Raman scattering) showed that one side of the noise became quieter by 1 decibel—the first squeezing of magnons in a visible object.
This isn't just a lab trick. Squeezed magnons could become the basis of quantum electronics based on magnetic waves—magnonics. They already promise ultra-sensitive sensors for detecting magnetic fields, and in the future, networks of quantum processors transmitting information not with current, but with waves of magnetization.
🎯 A magnon isn't a particle but a quantum of a collective wave: trillions of spins move together, like spectators in a stadium doing the wave in sync.