VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
The Three-Grating Test
An interferometer turns particle counts into a power-dependent fringe measurement.
Conceptual visualization of the three-grating matter-wave interferometer. The actual MUSCLE experiment uses three ultraviolet standing-wave gratings to prepare coherence, alter the quantum phase, and resolve the resulting interference pattern.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
The team used optical gratings to prepare and analyze a cluster beam. Moving the final grating reveals periodic transmitted counts, and varying the central grating’s power separates quantum and classical model predictions.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
The oversized gratings and bright wave paths simplify a sensitive vacuum instrument. A drawn split path is not a photograph of one cluster taking two visibly separate roads.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
The article explains how a sodium-cluster interferometer tests quantum coherence without putting a literal cat into the apparatus. An interferometer turns particle counts into a power-dependent fringe measurement.
Read They Put 7,000 Atoms in a Schrödinger’s Cat StateCHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
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