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arXiv:2507.13582 · Modern Physics Letters A

Chien-Shiung Wu as the experimental pioneer in quantum entanglement: A 2022 note

Yu Shi

Published Mar 21, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Advised by Prof. Chen Ning Yang, we review the early pioneering work by Chien-Shiung Wu on entangled photons created from the electron–positron annihilation. This paper formed a basis of the author’s speech at International Symposium Commemorating 110th Birth Anniversary of Chien-Shiung Wu, May 31, 2022, and of a few articles on the subject in Chinese.

DOI
10.1142/s0217732325300010

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International Journal of Modern Physics A•Nov 7, 2025•2 citations
Advised by Prof. Chen Ning Yang, we review the early pioneering work by Chien-Shiung Wu on entangled photons created from the electron–positron annihilation. This paper formed a basis of the author’s speech at International Symposium Commemorating 110th Birth Anniversary of Chien-Shiung Wu, May 31, 2022, and of a few articles on the subject in Chinese.
In 1950, Wu and her student published a coincidence experiment on entangled photon pairs that were created in electron–positron annihilation. This experiment precisely verified the prediction of quantum electrodynamics. Additionally, it was also the first instance of a precisely controlled quantum entangled state of spatially separated particles, although Wu did not know about this at the time. In 1956, Wu initiated and led the so-called Wu experiment, which discovered parity nonconservation, becoming one of the greatest experiments of the 20th century. As Yang said, Wu’s experiments were well known for their precision and accuracy. Experimental precision and accuracy manifested Wu’s scientific spirit, which we investigate here in some details. This paper is the transcript of the speech the author made at the International Symposium Commemorating the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of Wu, on May 31, 2022. The above abstract is just the original abstract of the speech.
Quantum entanglement is a key driving force behind modern quantum technology. The first scientist to experimentally verify this concept was Chien-Shiung Wu in 1949, at which time she was still a Chinese citizen. On December 1, 2024, Chien-Shiung Wu was featured on the year-end cover of Physics Today, in recognition of her groundbreaking experiment of fundamental importance on quantum entanglement. While this was clearly a decisive moment in the history of science, for more than 70 years, few people, even scientists, in the world knew about its existence. Taking this opportunity, I would like to revisit the story behind this cover article to provide readers with the genesis of how all this unfolded.
Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997) is often referred to as “the Chinese Marie Curie” even though she conducted most of her research in the US. She is best known for her discovery of the non-conservation of parity for weakly interacting particles – a finding for which she is widely regarded as having been passed over for the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. Seven years earlier, though, in a one-page letter to Physical Review , Wu and her graduate student also quietly reported what has come to be understood as the first conclusive evidence of entangled photons. Twenty years later, as quantum foundations research emerged from shadow, Wu revisited her 1949 experiment with a more refined approach. Wu shared the new results with Stuart Freedman, a collaborator of John Clauser. Clauser et al . would rigorously critique Wu’s experiments through at least 1978. In 2022, the Nobel Committee honored Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger, each of whom had produced increasingly convincing proof of entanglement beginning in the 1970s. Wu’s foundational work from almost seventy years earlier, however, was not mentioned. This chapter aims to help bring Wu’s entangled photons back into the light.
In this paper, the historical origins of quantum entanglement in particle physics are systematically and thoroughly investigated. 1957, Bohm and Aharonov noted that the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlation had been experimentally realized in the 1949 experiment of Chien-Shiung Wu and Shaknov. This was the first time in history that spatially separated quantum entanglement was explicitly realized in a controlled experiment. Wheeler first proposed such an experiment as a test of quantum electrodynamics, but his calculation was in error; the correct theoretical calculations came from Ward and Price, as well as from Snyder, Pasternack and Hornbostel, and the result was in accordance with Yang’s 1949 selection rule. After the publication of Bell’s inequality in 1964, it was considered whether it could be tested by using the Wu–Shaknov experiment. This gave an impetus to the field, and a new experiment was done by Wu’s group, though it was not successful as a test of Bell inequality violation. In 1957, Tsung-Dao Lee, Reinhard Oehme and Chen Ning Yang established the quantum mechanical description of the kaons and found that the neutral kaon is a two-state system. In 1958, based on an approach similar to Yang’s 1949 selection rule, Goldhaber, Lee and Yang were the first to write down the entangled states of kaon pairs, in which a single kaon can be charged or neutral. This gave, for the first time, quantum entanglement of internal degrees of freedom of high-energy particles other than photons. In 1960, as unpublished work, Lee and Yang discussed the consequences of quantum entanglement of neutral kaon pairs. We also describe several physicists in the past, especially Ward.