Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34521840›Full record

ArticleNature communications2021

Quantum state tomography of molecules by ultrafast diffraction.

Ming Zhang, Shuqiao Zhang, Yanwei Xiong, Hankai Zhang, Anatoly A Ischenko, Oriol Vendrell, Xiaolong Dong, Xiangxu Mu, Martin Centurion, Haitan Xu and 2 more

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
3.3field-weighted citation impact, top 7% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. A numerically exact description of ultrafast vibrational decoherence in vibration-coupled electron transfer.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  3. The Quantum Information Science Challenge for Chemistry.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2025
    Review
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.

Ming Zhang *State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China.
Shuqiao Zhang *State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China.
Yanwei XiongDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9412-4447
Hankai ZhangState Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China.
Anatoly A IschenkoLomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies, RTU-MIREA - Russian Technological University, Vernadskii Avenue 86, 119571, Moscow, Russia.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1532-377X
Oriol VendrellPhysikalisch-Chemisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 229, D-69120, Heidelberg, Germany.
Xiaolong DongState Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China.
Xiangxu MuState Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China.
Martin CenturionDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5662-2293
Haitan XuShenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China. xuht@sustech.edu.cn.
R J Dwayne MillerDepartments of Chemistry and Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 3H6, Canada. dmiller@lphys.chem.utoronto.ca.
Zheng LiState Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 10087, China. zheng.li@pku.edu.cn.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0329-1275
Peking University · CNUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln · USHeidelberg University · DEMIREA - Russian Technological University · RUUniversity of Science and Technology of China · CNUniversity of Toronto · CA

Funding

National Science Foundation (NSF) PHY-1606619National Science Foundation of China | National Natural Science Foundation of China-Yunnan Joint Fund (NSFC-Yunnan Joint Fund) 11974031Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) 20-02-00146
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Ultrafast electron diffraction and time-resolved serial crystallography are the basis of the ongoing revolution in capturing at the atomic level of detail the structural dynamics of molecules. However, most experiments capture only the probability density of the nuclear wavepackets to determine the time-dependent molecular structures, while the full quantum state has not been accessed. Here, we introduce a framework for the preparation and ultrafast coherent diffraction from rotational wave packets of molecules, and we establish a new variant of quantum state tomography for ultrafast electron diffraction to characterize the molecular quantum states. The ability to reconstruct the density matrix, which encodes the amplitude and phase of the wavepacket, for molecules of arbitrary degrees of freedom, will enable the reconstruction of a quantum molecular movie from experimental x-ray or electron diffraction data.

Identifiers

PMID34521840
PMCPMC8440554
OpenAlexW3200463768

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.