ground state
nounDefinition of ground state
: the state of a physical system (as of an atomic nucleus or an atom) having the least energy of all the possible states
— called also ground level
Examples of ground state in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
The system can reach this second state from the ground state by absorbing a photon of a different energy. — Philip Ball, WIRED, "Physicists See a Quantum Leap, Halt It, and Reverse It," 9 June 2019 In the ground state, the delicate interactions that correlate particles’ identities — effects that are destroyed at higher temperatures — link up particles in global patterns of quantum entanglement. — Quanta Magazine, "Physicists Aim to Classify All Possible Phases of Matter," 3 Jan. 2018 From the ground state, the atom can go to the dark state or the bright state. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Following Schrödinger’s cat to its death and giving it a reprieve," 5 June 2019 The atoms in the Harvard machine serve as qubits, their on-off states being either the ground state or an excited state called a Rydberg state. — Quanta Magazine, "Quantum Machine Appears to Defy Universe’s Push for Disorder," 20 Mar. 2019 The other two are excited states, which also have a spin up and spin down separation, but are at a much higher energy than the ground states. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Straining a diamond makes silicon-based qubit behave," 20 Sep. 2018 There are two states that are almost at the same energy, called the ground state and the storage state. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Rough-and-ready quantum memory may link disparate quantum systems," 9 Nov. 2018 The ground state is where the atom normally resides. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Rough-and-ready quantum memory may link disparate quantum systems," 9 Nov. 2018 The result is that, on average, the atom is never quite in the ground state. — Chris Lee, Ars Technica, "Single atoms sit still on a hot plate, may yield new quantum tech," 10 Sep. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ground state.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more