In contrast to the mundane classical world we experience in our daily life, the quantum world is known to be both elusive and strange - like the Shroedinger's cat that can be both alive and dead at the same time. Clearly, it requires considerable effort to maintain such delicate quantumness from falling into the classical trap.

Dr Umakant Rapol, Dr M. S. Santhanam (both faculty members in Physics at IISER Pune), and their team have recently authored a paper on this phenomenon. New research reported in this paper shows that it is possible to sustain the quantumness for a longer time under certain conditions. This potentially paves the way for emerging quantum technologies ranging from quantum computers to precision metrology. To tap the power of the quantum for such practical applications, the property of quantum superposition needs to be prolonged for as long as possible. The results of this paper represent a significant advance in this direction.

The paper is accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters (PRL) and is available online on the PRL website. The authors on this paper are Sumit Sarkar, Sanku Paul, Chetan Vishwakarma, Sunil Kumar, Gunjan Verma, M. Sainath, Umakant D. Rapol, and M. S. Santhanam.

Adapted from the write-up submitted to PRL Summaries