What can a quantum physicist, geologist, and mathematician have in common? Of course, the desire to solve the riddle of the universe! Scientists have found that observing the behavior of the Earth's oceans will help explore even the distant corners of the galaxy.
As we all know, science is full of surprises, and sometimes phenomena and concepts that at first glance have nothing in common converge in it. It would seem, what is the connection between a certain type of ocean waves that governs the El Niño climate cycle and quantum materials, the distinctive feature of which is their ability to conduct current only on the surface? Physicists, however, assure us that both of these phenomena can be explained by the same mathematical principles.
How quantum physics affects the world's weather
Brad Marston, a physicist at Brown University and the main author of the new study, tried to prove a very interesting theory. In his opinion, the use of topological principles can explain both the phenomenon that oceanic and atmospheric waves at the equator fall into a kind of "trap", and the fact that condensed matter physics (a huge branch of physics that studies the behavior of complex systems and claims that evolution the system as a whole cannot be "divided" into the evolution of its individual parts) can be equally useful both for the Earth and for explaining phenomena on other planets and moons. In simple terms: the main goal of the work is to prove that the principles of quantum physics are equally valid for our planet and for other cosmic bodies.
But how to prove such a large-scale theory? To do this, Marston teamed up with Pierre Delac, an expert in condensed matter physics, as well as with geophysicist Antoine Venail. Scientists have applied condensed matter theory to two types of gravitational waves, known as Kelvin and Yanai waves, that travel through the seas and air around the Earth's equator. These undulating distortions, hundreds and thousands of kilometers long, transmit an energy impulse east of the equator, which greatly affects El Niño, the system of fluctuations in the temperature of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, on which the state of the weather and the amount of precipitation depends. This happens due to the interaction of several physical processes. Firstly, the force of gravity enters into opposition with buoyancy,which causes cooling / heating of air and water due to droplets independent of each other. Second, the eastward rotation of the Earth creates the so-called Coriolis effect, which causes fluids to move along the Earth's surface in opposite directions depending on the hemisphere.
From theory to … theory
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To see how the effects interact with each other and form waves, Marston and his colleagues followed the same strategy as Taro Matsuno, a scientist at the University of Tokyo, who predicted an equatorial "trap" for waves back in 1966. This is where quantum physics comes in: Scientists simplify the structure of an entire ocean and focus on a narrow band over which the Coriolis effect remains roughly constant. But they do all their calculations not for equatorial waves, but for those that are better amenable to analysis. Physicists also switch to a simpler problem to demonstrate that it contains an answer to the original question, albeit implicitly.
Marston and his colleagues study waves not in ordinary space, but in the abstract space of all possible waves with different wavelengths and Coriolis effects. The equations for extremely long waves show two special mathematical points where the amplitude of the wave varies greatly with its length. These points are called "mathematical holes", and there are two of them, since the Earth has two hemispheres with oppositely directed Coriolis forces. As a result, as the researchers note on the pages of the Science portal, the hemispheres behave like two pieces of electrical insulating material. Just as combining two electrical insulating materials allows current to flow along their surface, combining the two hemispheres creates waves at their boundary - the equator, which decreases with increasing latitude. And, as in the case of material, the waves are stable or,as physicists say, "topologically protected" by the features of abstract space.
The future: quantum physics in the hands of astronomers
What does astronomy have to do with it? According to Marston, the principle of these waves is the same for any rotating planet. Scientists have found that even if it is in the shape of a donut, this will not change the situation. In theory, this system can be applied to other cosmic phenomena, for example, disks of dust and gas around black holes, as well as to the atmospheres of Venus and Titan, which also recorded equatorial waves. Thus, scientists have a powerful topological tool in their hands that will allow them to learn about the geophysics of the planet long before a probe or an expedition mission is sent to it.
Vasily Makarov