Scientists from the MPQ, LMU, and the FUB analyse how fast
order can appear in a quantum-mechanical system.
During the freezing of water, the initially unordered molecules
start to form an ordered crystal, namely ice. During this phase transition,
they rearrange from an unordered into a more ordered state. This setting
naturally poses one important question: How long does this phase transition
take, i.e. how long does it take for each molecule to find its place in the
crystal? The answer to this and similar questions has important consequences in
e.g. metallurgy, since the size of the resulting crystal grains plays a major
role in determining the elasticity or brittleness of steel. While these
questions have been studied extensively for classical systems, they are
relatively unexplored in the context of quantum systems.