For the first time, scientists have observed quantum entanglement in the momentum of massive particles. The result, decades in the making, could help physicists probe the relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity.
  • can@sh.itjust.works
    37·
    18 天前

    To prove the entanglement was real, the team used a device called a Rarity-Tapster interferometer.

    That’s what I was going to suggest.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    101·
    18 天前

    Quantum entanglement is one of the strangest features of quantum mechanics. When two particles are entangled, a measurement of one instantly affects the other. Scientists had demonstrated this before in photons (packets of light) and in the internal spin states of atoms but never in the motion of particles with mass. This is important because atoms have mass, and mass responds to gravity; photons don’t. Momentum-entangled atoms could one day power quantum sensors precise enough to detect space-time ripples called gravitational waves or to map Earth’s interior.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
      5·
      17 天前

      Wait photons don’t interact with gravity at all? It is just that the warping of spacetime by gravity effects light indirectly?

      • Gsus4@mander.xyzOP
        6·
        18 天前

        Photons do have energy (in the stress-energy tensor), so they curve spacetime too, but all particles follow geodesics regardless of mass…so…I guess it is all the same from gravity’s PoV…it is QM that makes a difference…but entanglement doesn’t either (like gravity)…wink wink, nudge nudge…

        PS: ok, ok, radiation’s energy density is 1/a⁴ and baryons is 1/a³, so there is a distinction there to having inertia towards gravity.