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Humans tend to think that they pretty much control the functioning of the physical world, but things become unspeakably small on a small scale. Particles are not always particles, and sometimes these particles (or waves) behave in a bizarre and counter-intuitive way. Quantum entanglement is one of the strangest aspects of physics, and scientists at the University of Glasgow have just captured the first photo demonstrating this effect.
When two particles or molecules entangle at a quantum level, they share one or more properties such as spin, polarization or momentum. This effect persists even if you move one of the entangled objects away from the other. Einstein in turn called the entanglement "spooky action at a distance". Einstein felt that the existence of entanglement meant that the theory of quantum mechanics had gaping holes.
Scientists have successfully demonstrated quantum entanglement with photos, electrons, molecules of different sizes and even very small diamonds. The Glasgow University study is the first to capture visual evidence of entanglement. The experiment used photons in entangled pairs and measured the phase of the particles – this is what is called a Bell entanglement.
The team produced photons with an ultraviolet laser, passing them through a crystal that entangled some of the photos. A beam splitter turned the beam into two equal "arms," with some of the entangled photos taking different paths. Since they were entangled, they continued to share the same phase even after being separated.
The experimental configuration. The beam starts at the bottom left, divides at the center and the left arm goes through the phase filters.
One of these photons crosses a liquid crystal material that makes it pass through four phase transitions (0, 45, 90 and 135 degrees). The team used an extremely sensitive camera to capture images of the entangled photon that had not passed through the filter. However, he showed the same phase transitions as his partner. The image above shows the entangled pair at a 45 degree phase.
Scientists believe that quantum entanglement could have applications in quantum computing, data transmission and even teleportation. For this to work, we need to study in more detail the entanglement. The University of Glasgow experience could pave the way for new types of imagery that help us cope with this spooky action from a distance.
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