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Recently, I have seen a lot of discussion surrounding NASA and quantum technologies. Specifically, there is a paper that came out in Nature titled "Quantum gas mixtures and dual-species atom interferometry in space". NASA has a cold atom lab in space that tackles challenges such as making Bose Einstein Condensates in space. When I look up the benefit of this, there are many vague statements such as "to investigate quantum phenomenon at low temperatures" and to "set the stage for quantum chemistry" listed on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's website.

I am wondering what is the concrete benefit of doing quantum technological tasks in space? What new insights does this give us, and why is this a worthwhile endeavor?

Relativisticcucumber
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Very good question! Microgravity has several advantages. This paper contains a list of those: https://epjquantumtechnology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjqt/s40507-020-00090-8 (see chapter 1 and 2). To summarize a few important points:

  • Better special overlapp of the traps for different species
  • Longer free-evolution times for atom interferometry
  • Realization of trap geometries not possible on earth (e.g. Bubble geometries)
  • Realization of much colder Condensates (see also https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.100401)
  • Larger 3D box potentials (+ for multiple species)
  • Creation of a gas with a record-low entropy per particle

Essentially every experiment that is ruined by gravity can be realized!

kai90
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