Prof. Freericks publishes research on a “quantum Cheshire cat” in prestigious journal Physical Review X

When quantum materials are highly excited by ultrafast lasers, the electrons exchange energy with phonons, and eventually, the system relaxes back to equilibrium at a well-known temperature. But the precise pathway that the system uses to get there is a question that continues to elude us from a concrete answer. In a recent PRX article, Prof. Freericks and collaborators at North Carolina State University show that many of the common assumptions people have used to analyze these problems are wrong! The article provides a fresh new perspective on how one should analyze these types of problems including an analogy with a “quantum Cheshire Cat”. For more details, see the article at https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevX.8.041009. This work was funded by the Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences.