Researchers from the University of Ottawa in Canada and Sapienza University of Rome in Italy have developed a new technique that can visualize this entanglement in record time.
Using the “two-photon digital holography” method they describe In an article in a magazine Nature photonics How they created a yin-yang-like image of two entangled light particles in real time.
Quantum entanglement is difficult to capture
Quantum entanglement is a connection between two similar particles, even if the distance between them is large.
This allows, for example, to connect two particles of light or photons over huge distances, so that when a change occurs in one particle, a similar change occurs in the other particle.
To predict how quantum objects such as photons will behave, physicists must determine the object’s wave function.
This wave function is a description of the state of a particle existing in superposition at the quantum level. This means that a particle can be in all physical states at the same time.
Determining the wave function of two entangled particles is extremely difficult work, because every measurement of one particle immediately leads to a change in the other particle.
Using the quantum tomography method, researchers perform 3D reconstructions of particles by measurements.
To do this, physicists have to make many measurements of the quantum state of particles, and the more complex the state, the more measurements. From there, they can then reconstruct the 3D object for meshing based on the predictions.
In a press release Researchers compare it to simulating a 3D object using the object’s 2D shadows on a wall.
This method produces accurate results, but it also produces many results that are not physically possible and therefore must be filtered to obtain an accurate image, a process that can take days.
Yin Yangvertingling
Finally, we arrive at the new two-photon digital holography technology. Stereograms are two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects.
Thus, optical holograms use two light beams to create a 3D image. A single ray is incident on an object and the ray is reflected. The other beam shines in front of the camera with extreme precision.
A hologram consists of light interference, a pattern in which the peaks and valleys of two light waves merge or cancel each other out.
Using this method and a nanosecond camera, the researchers were able to separate the interference pattern by plotting the unknown quantum state against a known state, revealing a yin-yang-like reconstruction of the two entangled photons.
“This method is significantly faster than previous techniques, requiring only minutes or seconds instead of days,” Alessio Derrico from the research team and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa said in the press release.
Quantum entanglement is one of the foundations of quantum computers. A better understanding of entanglement could lead to more stable quantum computers.
The researchers write in their article that the shape of yin-yang was created by chance due to the angle of light rays of light. In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang symbolize connected opposites, such as light and darkness, and night and day.
