With some unusual luggage per person commuting on the London Underground. They include a stainless steel vacuum chamber, a few billion rubidium atoms, and various lasers used to cool the equipment to a temperature just above absolute zero.
Although it’s not an ordinary toolbox you’d expect someone to carry with them on London Underground carriages.
This luggage may be strange, it has an ambitious purpose. This equipment is being used to develop a quantum compass, an instrument that will exploit the behavior of subatomic matter to develop devices that can pinpoint their position no matter where they are, paving the way for a new generation of systems spot detection and even with the ability to locate an object that is under the surface of the ground or water.
How does it work
This system is based on a new generation of sensors, and the research team that develops it considers the London Underground, which is known to extend to great depths, to be an ideal place for testing.
The idea of a quantum compass is to improve or replace existing technologies for locating the positions of planes, cars and other objects. These are usually based on satellite navigation systems such as GPS which have become vital to the road, sea and air transport of goods and services. Using external signals, these systems can accurately determine vehicle positions.
But GPS systems are vulnerable to bad weather and other phenomena or obstacles. The satellites that rely on these systems are disabled during geomagnetic storms that often hit Earth, do not operate underwater or underground, and their signals are often blocked by tall buildings and other obstacles. The aim of the development of the new system, which is funded by the UK’s Research and Innovation Mission Fund and the UK’s National Quantum Technologies Programme, is to create a system that will provide precision in determining the location of an object but will not rely on receiving external signals.
When we won’t have to worry about signals being lost or blocked by high-rise buildings. You will have more confidence in knowing where you or your vehicle is at any given moment.
At the heart of the quantum compass is a device known as an accelerometer that can measure how an object’s speed changes over time. This information, combined with the starting point of this object, allows its future positions to be calculated. Mobile phones and laptops have accelerometers but today’s versions cannot maintain their accuracy for long periods of time.
However, quantum mechanics offers scientists a way to provide new precision and accuracy by measuring the properties of supercooled atoms. At extremely low temperatures, atoms behave in a quantum manner. They act as both matter and waves.
The temperature
In subway-borne equipment, the rubidium is introduced into the vacuum chamber at the heart of the equipment. Powerful lasers are then used to cool these atoms to the limits of absolute zero (−273.15 C). In these conditions, the wave properties of the rubidium atoms are affected by the acceleration of the vehicle carrying the equipment, and these small changes can be precisely measured.
