Mainz 2026 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 51: Ultra-cold Atoms, Ions and BEC III (joint session A/Q)
Q 51.1: Invited Talk
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 11:00–11:30, N 1
Quantum-enabled active matter at the atomic scale — •Sabrina Burgardt1, Julian Feß1, Silvia Hiebel1, Alexander Guthmann1, Aritra K. Mukhopadhyay2, Sangyun Lee3, Michael te Vrugt3, Benno Liebchen2, Hartmut Löwen4, Raphael Wittkowski5,6, and Artur Widera1 — 1Department of Physics and State Research Center OPTIMAS, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Erwin-Schrödinger-Str. 46, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany — 2Institute for Condensed Matter Physics, Technical University of Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 8, 64285 Darmstadt, Germany — 3Institute of Physics, Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz, Staudingerweg 9, 55128 Mainz, Germany — 4Institute of Theoretical Physics II: Soft Matter, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany — 5Department of Physics, RWTH Aachen University, Forckenbeckstr. 50, 52074 Aachen, Germany — 6DWI – Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Forckenbeckstr. 50, 52074 Aachen, Germany
Active particles, which are able to extract energy from their local environment and convert it into motion, have been widely studied in robotics, biology, and soft matter science. So far, it is unclear whether activity can be realized on the much smaller scale of individual quantum systems. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that optically trapped 133Cs atoms are able to extract energy via nonreciprocal quantum-mechanical spin-exchange interactions from a thermal cloud of 87Rb atoms and convert this energy into active motion. It is found that the quantum-enabled activity has significant effects on the in-trap dynamics. We quantitatively reproduce the experimental findings with numerical Monte-Carlo collision simulations and with an active Langevin model for the motion of the 133Cs atoms. Our results open the door to combining effects of quantum mechanics and activity, allowing to design novel exotic far-from-equilibrium systems.
Keywords: Active Particles; Single Impurities