SGER: Exploratory Research into Producing Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions

这个SGER奖是为了允许研究者进行初步实验，以测试一个方案的可行性，该方案通过单个光子与一个小镜子的相互作用来创建涉及大量原子的量子叠加态。这样的量子叠加态将比迄今为止观测到的任何量子叠加态都要大，因此将在一个全新的体系中为量子力学提供基本的测试。如果成功，这项工作的结果可能会导致一个更大规模的项目，这个项目已经衍生出广泛的应用领域，在这个领域，系统的行为，甚至是宏观系统，都是由量子行为主导的。

This SGER award is to allow the investigator to conduct preliminary experiments to test the feasibility of a scheme for creating quantum superposition states involving a very large number of atoms via the interaction of a single photon with a tiny mirror. Such quantum superpositions will be more massive than any quantum superpositions observed to date and will therefore provide fundamental tests of quantum mechanics in an entirely new regime. If successful, the results of this effort could lead to a larger scale project that has spin-off to a broad range of applications in that arena where the behavior of systems, even macroscopic systems, is dominated by quantum behavior.