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Entangled
drumheads. |
New research pushes the limits of physics by realizing quantum entanglement in larger systems.
New
experiments with vibrating drums are pushing quantum physics to its limits.
Quantum entanglement is created in larger systems by two teams of physicists.
Critics wonder if the work gets beyond Heisenberg's renowned uncertainty
principle.
One of the
scientists' main concerns was whether larger systems may demonstrate quantum
entanglement in the same manner that tiny systems can. According to quantum
theory, two objects can become "entangled," meaning that one object's
qualities, such as position or velocity, can become linked to those of the
other.
An
experiment led by physicist Shlomi Kotler and his colleagues at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, demonstrated that a
pair of vibrating aluminium membranes, each about 10 micrometers long, can be
made to vibrate in sync in such a way that they can be described as quantum
entangled. To "see" the entanglement more clearly, Kotler's team
boosted the signal from their equipment. The identical results were returned
when measuring their position and velocities, demonstrating that they were
really entangled.
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Tiny
aluminium membranes used by Kotler’s team. |
Evading
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
A team led
by Prof. Mika Sillanpää at Aalto University in Finland used quantum drums —
each one-fifth the diameter of a human hair — to try to figure out what occurs
when quantum and non-quantum behavior collide. They accomplished quantum
entanglement for larger objects, just like the other researchers, but they also
conducted an intriguing investigation into how to get past the Heisenberg
uncertainty principle.
Dr. Matt
Woolley of the University of New South Wales created the team's theoretical
model. Photons at microwave frequencies were used to create a synchronized
vibrating pattern as well as to evaluate the drum placements. The researchers
were able to make the drums vibrate in opposite phases, resulting in
"collective quantum motion."
"In this circumstance, the quantum uncertainty of the drums' motion is negated if the two drums are considered as one quantum-mechanical object," said Dr. Laure Mercier de Lepinay, the study's principal author.
The team was able to measure both the locations and the motion of the virtual drumheads at the same time because to this effect. "One of the drums replies in kind of a negative mass to all of the pressures of the other drum," Sillanpää added.
According to the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle, one of quantum physics' most well-known concepts, this should not be
possible. The concept, proposed by Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s, states that
when dealing with the quantum world, where particles also act like waves,
measuring both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time is
inherently uncertain. The more precisely one variable is measured, the more
questionable the measurement of the other becomes. In other words, pinpointing
the exact values of the particle's position and momentum at the same time is
impossible.
Quantum skepticism
"A tremendously exciting research," astronomer Adam Frank said, "since it shows that it's feasible to construct larger entangled systems that behave like a single quantum particle." However, because we're looking at a single quantum item, the measurement doesn't appear to be 'getting around' the uncertainty principle, as we know that in entangled systems, observing one portion constrains the behaviour of other parts."
The
main breakthrough of this current work is that they have produced a macroscopic
system where two components are successfully quantum mechanically entangled
across huge length scales and with large masses, said Ethan Siegel, an
astronomer. However, there is no fundamental avoidance of Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle here; each individual component is precisely as uncertain
as quantum physics predicts. While it's crucial to investigate the relationship
between quantum entanglement and the various components of the systems,
including what happens when both components are treated as a single system,
nothing in this study refutes Heisenberg's most significant contribution to
physics.
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