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Findings Challenge Understanding of Quantum Theory

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Researchers have shown that when photons are created in pairs, they can emerge from different, rather than the same, locations. The discovery, which is in contrast to the general belief that photon pairs must originate from single points in space, could impact the study of quantum physics.

“Until now, it has been assumed that such paired photons come from the same location,” said professor David Andrews of the University of East Anglia. “Now, the identification of a new delocalized mechanism shows that each photon pair can be emitted from spatially separated points, introducing a new positional uncertainty of a fundamental quantum origin.”

Researchers were studying spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), a process in which photon beams are passed through a crystal to generate entangled pairs of photons, when they discovered a novel mechanism involved in the creation of paired light particles.

The physical mechanism, which operated through virtual photon propagation, provided for photon pairs to be emitted from spatially separated sites of photon interaction. Occasionally, pairs were produced in which each photon emerged from a different point in space. The extent of nonlocalized generation was influenced by individual variations in both distance and phase correlation. Mathematical analysis of the global contributions from this mechanism provided researchers with a quantitative measure for a degree of positional uncertainty in the origin of down-converted emission.

The entanglement of the quantum states in each pair has applications in quantum computing and other areas of quantum physics. The findings are also significant because they place limits on spatial resolution.

“Everything has a certain quantum 'fuzziness' to it, and photons are not the hard little bullets of light that are popularly imagined,” Andrews said.

Quantum entanglement is widely used in labs in numerous processes from quantum cryptography to quantum teleportation.

For further information about the University of East Anglia, visit: http://uea.ac.uk/

The research was published in Physical Review Letters (doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.133602).


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Published: May 2017
Glossary
quantum
The term quantum refers to the fundamental unit or discrete amount of a physical quantity involved in interactions at the atomic and subatomic scales. It originates from quantum theory, a branch of physics that emerged in the early 20th century to explain phenomena observed on very small scales, where classical physics fails to provide accurate explanations. In the context of quantum theory, several key concepts are associated with the term quantum: Quantum mechanics: This is the branch of...
quantum entanglement
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in quantum mechanics where two or more particles become correlated to such an extent that the state of one particle instantly influences the state of the other(s), regardless of the distance separating them. This means that the properties of each particle, such as position, momentum, spin, or polarization, are interdependent in a way that classical physics cannot explain. When particles become entangled, their individual quantum states become inseparable,...
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