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arXiv:1205.0317 · Physical Review Letters

Triple Compton Effect: A Photon Splitting into Three upon Collision with a Free Electron

Erik Lötstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Published Jun 6, 2012• 12 citations
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Abstract

The process in which a photon splits into three after the collision with a free electron (triple Compton effect) is the most basic process for the generation of a high-energy multiparticle entangled state composed out of elementary quanta. The cross section of the process is evaluated in two experimentally realizable situations, one employing gamma photons and stationary electrons, and the other using keV photons and GeV electrons of an x-ray free electron laser. For the first case, our calculation is in agreement with the only available measurement of the differential cross section for the process under study. Our estimates indicate that the process should be readily measurable also in the second case. We quantify the polarization entanglement in the final state by a recently proposed multiparticle entanglement measure.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.108.233201

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The process in which a photon splits into three after the collision with a free electron (triple Compton effect) is the most basic process for the generation of a high-energy multiparticle entangled state composed out of elementary quanta. The cross section of the process is evaluated in two experimentally realizable situations, one employing gamma photons and stationary electrons, and the other using keV photons and GeV electrons of an x-ray free electron laser. For the first case, our calculation is in agreement with the only available measurement of the differential cross section for the process under study. Our estimates indicate that the process should be readily measurable also in the second case. We quantify the polarization entanglement in the final state by a recently proposed multiparticle entanglement measure.
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Abstract The experimental setup for study of Compton scattering of entangled and decoherent annihilation gammas is described. These gammas are born in two-photon positron-electron annihilation. Polarizations of annihilation gammas are mutually orthogonal, while the polarization of each photon is indefinite. If one of the photons of the pair interacts with matter, the pair becomes decoherent and photons acquire the determined polarization states. The kinematics of Compton scattering depends on the polarization states and can be different for entangled and decoherent pairs of annihilation photons. The angular correlations of scattered gammas for both, entangled and decoherent states are measured and compared. It is shown, that the kinematics of Compton scattering are similar for both cases.
Understanding and harnessing X-ray quantum effects could open new, to our knowledge, frontiers in imaging and quantum optics. In this study, we measured the process of X-ray parametric down-conversion, where a single high-energy X-ray photon splits into two lower-energy photons. Using the SACLA X-ray free electron laser in Japan at 9.83 keV, we found clear evidence that pairs of photons were produced along the energy-angle relationship that conserved both energy and momentum, as predicted for down-conversion, and consistent with quantum entanglement of X-ray photons. By matching specific photon pairs for energy and momentum conservation, we observe a signal rate of 1250 pairs per hour, confirming that correlated photon pairs can be generated and observed in the absence of explicit time correlations. Our results show that with further refinement, the number of entangled photons produced per laser pulse could increase by an order of magnitude. This paves the way for demonstrating quantum-enhanced X-ray imaging, and confirmation of X-ray photon entanglement.
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The familiar Bethe-Heitler process on the proton target e+p→e+p+γe+p\to e+p+γe+p→e+p+γ is transformed into a laboratory for studying multiparticle entanglement. We discuss how bipartite and genuine tripartite entanglement between the final state electron, proton and photon are built up by successive 1→21\to 21→2 and 2→22\to 22→2 elementary interactions. We validate our argument by simulating events. Below 5 GeV center-of-mass energy, we identify more than 900 Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states and 1200 W states, each with a fidelty exceeding 99%.