Never let it be said that scientists don't have an eye for the sublime.
Encoding and deciphering a Chinese symbol for duality and harmony into the quantum states of two entangled photons, physicists recently demonstrated the superior efficiency of a new analytical technique.
Researchers from the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Ottawa in Canada used a method similar to a popularBy improving on existing methods for capturing critical details on various states in entangled particles, the team hopes to provide engineers with new computing and imaging tools that form the basis of quantum technologies.
Individual photons, like any particle, are best described as a slowly evolving range of possibilities before a measurement bestows hard, factual numbers on them. Polarization, spin, momentum, even their position, are as unsettled as a coin tumbling through the air until a metaphorical hand slaps it into a single state.
If two photons share a history of some kind – like two coins plucked from the same purse – slapping one is as good as stopping the other mid-flight. Entangled as they are, knowing something about one will give you a measure of the other as if it too were slapped into place.. Numerous entangled particles called qubits can have one of their states read in ways that will rapidly answer specially formulated mathematical questions.
Yet why use just one state when particles have so many undecided characteristics to choose from, turning simple 2D qubits into 'multi-dimensional'To build a more complex picture of a particle, physicists can take a series of measures, just as multiple X-rays are used to build a 3D picture of a body in