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Scientists Measure Magnetic Interaction Between Two Bound Electrons
An anonymous reader writes In a paper published in Nature (abstract), scientists report successfully measuring the magnetic interaction of two bound electrons of two different strontium (Sr) ions. The two ions were suspended in a quadrupole ion trap (a.k.a. a Paul trap), and the effects of ambient magnetic noise were mitigated by 'restricting the spin evolution [of the electrons] to a decoherence-free subspace that is immune to collective magnetic field noise.' The scientists measured the magnetic interaction of the two electrons as a function of distance and found that the force acting between the two was inversely dependant on the cubed distance between the electrons, consistent with Newton's inverse-cube law.
The phenomenon was known, a hypothesis existed to predict the results, and a test was devised to confirm the hypothesis. One critique, the article only mentions one Strontium ion separation, 10um. I would suggest that the test be repeated at multiple separations, and then determine if the data correlates with the predictions.