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A team of physicists from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow captured an image of Bell entanglement, a powerful form of quantum impediment.
Unique complete picture of Bell's entanglement. Scale bar – 1 mm. Image credit: Moreau et al, doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.aaw2563.
Two particles that interact with each other – for example two photons crossing a beam splitter – can sometimes remain connected, instantly sharing their physical states, regardless of the distance between them.
This connection is known as quantum entanglement and is part of the physics branch called Quantum Mechanics, which describes how the world works at even smaller atoms and particles.
Quantum mechanics says that at these very small scales, some particle properties are entirely based on probability. In other words, nothing is certain until that happens.
Albert Einstein did not quite believe that the laws of quantum mechanics described reality. He and other theoretical physicists have postulated that there must be some variables hidden at work that would allow quantum systems to be predictable.
In 1964, however, John Bell published the idea that any physical reality model with such hidden variables must also allow the instantaneous influence of one particle on another.
Although Einstein has proved that information can not travel faster than the speed of light, two entangled particles can still be affected when they are distant one. on the other, even from the other side of the universe, according to Bell.
Today, while Bell 's entanglement is being exploited in practical applications such as quantum computing and cryptography, it has never been captured in a single image.
"The image we managed to capture is an elegant demonstration of a fundamental property of nature, seen for the first time in the form of an image," said Dr. Paul-Antoine. Moreau, member of the team and first author of an article published in the newspaper Progress of science.
Dr. Moreau and his colleagues have developed a system that triggers a tangled photon flux from a quantum light source on "unconventional objects" – displayed on liquid crystal materials that alter the photon phase when 'They cross.
The researchers developed a super-sensitive camera capable of detecting single photons that would only take an image if it saw both a photon and its entangled "twin", creating a visible record of photon entanglement.
"This is an exciting result that could be used to advance the emerging field of quantum computing and lead to new types of imaging," said Dr. Moreau.
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Paul-Antoine Moreau et al. 2019. Non-local behavior of Bell type imaging. Progress of science 5 (7): eaaw2563; doi: 10.1126 / sciadv.aaw2563
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