Quantum physicists have created the Cheshire Cat

I.e. separated a part of an object from its body while still alive. The singularity is here.



Scientists have for the first time separated a particle from one of its physical properties - creating a "quantum Cheshire Cat".

The phenomenon is named after the curious feline in Alice in Wonderland, who vanishes leaving only its grin.

Researchers took a beam of neutrons and separated them from their magnetic moment, like passengers and their baggage at airport security.

The feline analogy is a nod to Schrodinger's Cat - the infamous thought experiment in which a cat in a box is both alive and dead simultaneously - illustrating a quantum phenomenon known as superposition.

A neutron beam was passed through a silicon crystal, sending it down two different paths - like passengers and their luggage at airport security.

By applying filters and a technique known as "post-selection", they were able to detect the physical separation of the neutrons from their magnetic moment - as measured by the direction of their spin.

"The system behaves as if the neutrons go through one beam path, while their magnetic moment travels along the other," the researchers reported.

Glimpsing this Cheshire Cat requires what quantum physicists call "weak measurement," whereby you interact with a system so gently that you avoid collapsing it from a quantum state to a classical one.

Their delicate apparatus could have useful applications in high-precision metrology, the researchers say.

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