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Rochester physicists find ‘spooky action at a distance’ at CERN

EXPERIMENTING WITH ENTANGLEMENT: The inside of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the 大型强子对撞机. Rochester physicists working at the detector have observed spin entanglement between top quarks and top antiquarks persisting at long distances and high speeds. (CERN图片/ Maximilien Brice)

The researchers have confirmed that quantum entanglement persists between top quarks, 已知最重的基本粒子.

An experiment by a group of physicists led by 澳门威尼斯人网上赌场 物理学教授 Regina Demina has produced a significant result related to quantum entanglement—an effect that Albert Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

Entanglement concerns the coordinated behavior of miniscule particles that have interacted but then moved apart. Measuring properties—like position or momentum or spin—of one of the separated pair of particles instantaneously changes the results of the other particle, no matter how far the second particle has drifted from its twin. In effect, the state of one entangled particle, or qubit, is inseparable from the other.

Quantum entanglement has been observed between stable particles, such as photons or electrons.

But Demina and her group broke new ground in that they found, 第一次, entanglement to persist between unstable top quarks and their antimatter partners at distances farther than what can be covered by information transferred at the speed of light. Specifically, the researchers observed spin correlation between the particles.

Hence, the particles demonstrated what Einstein described as “spooky action at a distance.”   

量子探索的“新途径”

这一发现 据报道 by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration at the European Center for Nuclear Research, 或欧洲核子澳门威尼斯人网上赌场中心, 实验是在哪里进行的.

“Confirming the quantum entanglement between the heaviest fundamental particles, 顶夸克, has opened up a new avenue to explore the quantum nature of our world at energies far beyond what is accessible,报告写道。.

CERN, located near Geneva, Switzerland, is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory. Production of top quarks requires very high energies accessible at the 大型强子对撞机 (LHC), which enables scientists to send high-energy particles spinning around a 17-mile underground track at close to the speed of light.

The phenomenon of entanglement has become the foundation of a burgeoning field of quantum information science that has broad implications in areas like cryptography and quantum computing.

顶夸克, 每一个都和金原子一样重, 只能在对撞机上产生吗, 比如LHC, and thus are unlikely to be used to build a quantum computer. But studies like those conducted by Demina and her group can shed light on how long entanglement persists, whether it is passed on to the particles’ “daughters” or decay products, 什么, 如果有什么区别的话, 最终打破纠缠.

Theorists believe that the universe was in an entangled state after its initial fast expansion stage. The new result observed by Demina and her researchers could help scientists underst什么 led to the loss of the quantum connection in our world.

顶夸克 in quantum long-distance relationships

Demina记录 CMS社交媒体频道的视频 来解释她的小组的结果. She used the analogy of an indecisive king of a distant land, whom she called “King Top.”

King Top gets word that his country is being invaded, so he sends messengers to tell all the people of his land to prepare to defend. 但后来, Demina在视频中解释道, he changes his mind and sends messengers to order the people to stand down.

“他总是这样反复无常, and nobody knows what his decision will be at the next moment,德米娜说.

没有人, Demina继续解释, except the leader of one village in this kingdom who is known as “Anti-Top.”

“They know each other’s state of mind at any moment in time,德米娜说.

Demina’s research group consists of herself and graduate student Alan Herrera and postdoctoral fellow 奥托Hindrichs.

As a graduate student, Demina was on the team that discovered the top quark in 1995. 晚些时候, 作为澳门威尼斯人网上赌场的教员, Demina co-led a team of scientists from across the US that built a tracking device that played a key role in 2012年发现希格斯玻色子—an elementary particle that helps explains the origin of mass in the universe.

Rochester researchers have a long history at CERN as part of the CMS的合作, which brings together physicists from around the globe. 最近,澳门威尼斯人网上赌场的另一个团队 achieved a significant milestone in measuring the electroweak mixing angle的关键组成部分 粒子物理学的标准模型, which explains how the building blocks of matter interact.

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