We owe a lot to Einstein, and this week physicists have confirmed another of his theories by unraveling and proving that quantum entanglement does in fact exist. Under the standard quantum theory, nothing has a definitive state until it’s measured, and when two particles interact they become entangled. Being entangled means no longer do the particles have their probabilities but one that includes both particles together. Even though two photons become entangled, they can still travel light years apart from each other, but they will always remain linked.
It’s this entanglement theory that Einstein had trouble with back in the 1930’s and 1940’s and was very skeptical about it in his arguments regarding the completeness of quantum mechanics. In 1964 another physicist set to work trying to prove the world of quantum mechanics and he came out with the concepts of realism and locality and that there is an upper limit to the amount of correlation that can be seen between two particles’ measured states. But Bell’s theory has been disproved many times as entangled particles are more correlated than Bell’s upper limit suggests.
However, in addition to realism and locality, there was another assumption that Bell made that was left unnoticed for quite some time, and that’s freedom. Andrew Freidman of MIT and co-author of the new paper said, “The three assumptions that go into Bell’s theorem that is relevant are locality, realism, and freedom. Recently it’s been discovered that you can keep locality and realism by giving up just a little bit of freedom.” This is what’s referred to as the “freedom-of-choice” loophole. This loophole gained popularity in 2010 when Michael Hall of Griffith University in Australia discovered a way of reducing freedom of choice in a quantitative way. In doing so, he again confirmed how Bell’s theory was correct and that reduced freedom of choice only creates the illusion of quantum entanglement.
Another physicist who chose to work with the Bell theory and the freedom-of-choice loophole was Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna. His work involved developing ideas on how to distinguish between a universe that was lacking in local realism and another that curbed freedom. Zeilinger and his team completed a series of cosmic Bell test experiments, but still, they found that the measurement outcomes would violate Bell’s upper limit. Their next move is to use light from quasars to control their measurement settings allowing them to go even further back in time. They may even find a transition point where violations of Bell’s limit disappear. Friedman stated, “For us, it seems like a win-win. Either we close the loophole more and more, and we’re more confident in quantum theory, or we see something that could point toward new physics.”
Related Links;
- Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars
- Bell’s theorem
- Local deterministic model of singlet state correlations based on relaxing measurement independence
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