Looks a bit … big.
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It is a long exposure shot, this is the same atom emitting light in slightly different positions. It is not 100% still of course. Also, there is a limit to the optical resolution made accessible by a single photon, this is set by the famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle
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isn't all things we see just light bouncing off of atoms?
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Photo credit: 'Single Atom in an Ion Trap' by David Nadlinger from the
@UniofOxford. https://epsrc.ukri.org/newsevents/news/single-trapped-atom-captures-science-photography-competitions-top-prize/ … -
It's a trap
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That's cruel and unusual treatment of atoms keeping them trapped in a confined magnetic field. :)
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RIGHTS FOR ATOMS!
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By Earnshaw’s theorem, the electric field maintaining the atom’s stable equilibrium cannot be static. I wonder how they control the electrodynamics to produce such a stable equilibrium!
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Its an RF Paul trap. We use an oscillating electric field in a quadrupole configuration to produce a time-averaged harmonic potential
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It's being illuminated by a laser and held motionless thanks to an electric field. It absorbs and re-emits light particles sufficiently quickly for an ordinary camera to capture it.