Physical Review Letters published Tsinghua University's March 27 experiment simulating false vacuum decay with lasers and rubidium-87 atoms, turning a cosmology concept into a controlled lab system.
Two engineered energy states let the team mimic a metastable false vacuum shifting to a lower-energy true vacuum, with quantum fluctuations triggering the transition.
Lead scientist Wang Xiao said the work does not predict any real cosmic catastrophe; it is designed to probe quantum mechanics and test how such transitions unfold.
Rubidium-87 atom arrays could also support quantum computing and other quantum technologies, extending the experiment beyond fundamental physics.
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