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Il Nuovo cimento della Società italiana di fisica. B/Il Nuovo cimento B

Correlation of annihilation γ-ray polarization

Guido Bertolini, E. Diana, Alexandria Scotti

Published Jun 1, 1981• 16 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/bf02755105

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We present the concept and development of a novel accelerator-based source of high-intensity quantum-entangled 511 keV gamma-ray pairs produced through positron-electron annihilation. The source leverages the unique capabilities of the proposed Jefferson Lab positron facility to generate polarized, high-current positron beams with a well-defined time structure. These beams enable the production of entangled annihilation photons at intensities far exceeding those available from conventional radioactive sources. The resulting gamma-ray pairs can be characterized using Compton polarimetry techniques, providing a powerful platform for precision studies of quantum entanglement. The combination of high intensity, controllable polarization, and precise timing also opens new opportunities in medical imaging, materials science, quantum information science, and spintronics. Compared with traditional radioactive sources, the proposed system offers orders-of-magnitude higher photon flux, tunable beam parameters, and unprecedented control of the annihilation process. We discuss the source design, methods for entanglement characterization, potential applications, and future development directions.
In positron annihilation, exploration of the polarization correlations of the emerging gamma quanta has gained interest, since they offer a possibility to improve signal-to-background in medical imaging using positron emission tomography. The annihilation quanta, which are predicted to be in an entangled state, have orthogonal polarizations and this property may be exploited to discriminate them from two uncorrelated gamma photons contributing to the background. Recent experimental studies of polarization correlations of the annihilation quanta after a prior Compton scattering of one of them, had rather different conclusions regarding the strength of the correlation after the scattering, showing its puzzling nature. The scattering was described as a decoherence process. In the present work, we perform for the first time, a study of the polarization correlations of annihilation quanta after decoherence via Compton scattering in the angular range 0∘−50∘ using single-layer gamma ray polarimeters. In addition, we compare the measured polarization correlations after Compton scattering at 30∘ with an active and a passive scatterer element. The measured azimuthal correlation of back-to-back annihilation quanta is consistent with the Pryce-Ward formulation, as confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations. Further, the results indicate that the correlation, expressed in terms of the polarimetric modulation factor, shows no significant difference at small scattering angles (0∘−30∘) compared to the correlation measured for direct photons, while a moderate indication of a lower modulation is observed for 50∘ scattering angle. The measured modulation is larger at all scattering angles than the one expected from the simulation of orthogonally polarized, independent annihilation quanta.
Quantum entanglement between gamma-ray photons emitted following electron-positron annihilation is expected to be maximal and may be characterized via non-classical polarization correlations. However, this is difficult to verify experimentally because there are no established schemes that approach ideal projective-polarization measurements for high-energy photons. Hence, polarization entanglement between MeV-scale annihilation photons has not yet been conclusively demonstrated. We develop here a framework that models polarization measurements of high-energy photons via Compton polarimetry, employing the formalism of positive operator-valued measures (POVMs). We extend the POVM description to sequences of repeated interactions and show that the measurement converges toward an ideal projective measurement of linear polarization as the number of interactions increases. We demonstrate that this progressive improvement in measurement sharpness can enable the experimental violation of CHSH inequalities.