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Time-Reversed EPR and the Choice of Histories in Quantum Mechanics

Elitzur, A C, Dolev, S, Anton Zeilinger

Published May 29, 2002• 21 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

When a single photon is split by a beam splitter, its two `halves' can entangle two distant atoms into an EPR pair. We discuss a time-reversed analogue of this experiment where two distant sources cooperate so as to emit a single photon. The two `half photons,' having interacted with two atoms, can entangle these atoms into an EPR pair once they are detected as a single photon. Entanglement occurs by creating indistinguishabilility between the two mutually exclusive histories of the photon. This indistinguishabilility can be created either at the end of the two histories (by `erasing' the single photon's path) or at their beginning (by `erasing' the two atoms' positions).

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When a single photon is split by a beam splitter, its two halves' can entangle two distant atoms into an EPR pair. We discuss a time-reversed analogue of this experiment where two distant sources cooperate so as to emit a single photon. The two half photons,' having interacted with two atoms, can entangle these atoms into an EPR pair once they are detected as a single photon. Entanglement occurs by creating indistinguishabilility between the two mutually exclusive histories of the photon. This indistinguishabilility can be created either at the end of the two histories (by erasing' the single photon's path) or at their beginning (by erasing' the two atoms' positions).
When a single photon is split by a beam splitter, its two `halves' can entangle two distant atoms into an EPR pair. We discuss a time-reversed analogue of this experiment where two distant sources cooperate so as to emit a single photon. The two `half photons,' having interacted with two atoms, can entangle these atoms into an EPR pair once they are detected as a single photon. Entanglement occurs by creating indistinguishabilility between the two mutually exclusive histories of the photon. This indistinguishabilility can be created either at the end of the two histories (by `erasing' the single photon's path) or at their beginning (by `erasing' the two atoms' positions).
hysically distant quantum particles can share properties and can behave as a single object.For pairs of photons, this entangled behavior allows for data transfer between the two particles, for example.Quantum entanglement can also occur between more massive particles, including two individual atoms.Now, in a controlled experiment, Filippo Borselli of the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, and colleagues create traveling beams of entangled atoms that are reliably produced from a reservoir source using two parallel waveguides [1].The experiment could be a starting point for developing integrated quantum circuits and quantum-information processing devices that use pairs of atoms.
A scheme achieving quantum entanglement swapping between two pairs of bright EPR optical beams is theoretically proposed. Two pairs of coherent EPR beams are produced from two independent nondegenerate optical parametric amplifiers. The entanglement swapping is demonstrated by means of a half of each EPR beam. The measuring process entangles other two halves of EPR beams that have never directly interacted with each other. In the proposed system, the direct detection of Bell-states is applied instead of usual homodyne detetion. Due to that the local oscillator is not needed, the technic trouble for mode-matching is overcome and the efficiency of the detection can be increased in experiments.
Summary form only given. The preparation of simple entangled quantum systems and the demonstration of their nonclassical properties has been a challenging goal since the early days of quantum mechanics and the famous Einstein Poldolsky Rosen (ERR) paper. Using circular Rydberg atoms strongly interacting with a zero or one-photon field stored in a microwave superconducting cavity, we have been able to prepare a new kind of EPR pair involving two entangled massive particles. The entanglement originates from the Rabi oscillation of a single excited atom emitting a photon in an initially empty cavity on a transition between two adjacent Rydberg levels.
It follows from the standard quantum formalism that in the time between any two noncommuting measurements there are two quantum states of the same system representing two complementary, forward and backward histories, histories that may be observed in two complementary experiments. It follows from this in turn that all interpretations of quantum mechanics based on the idea of a single state between measurements should be rejected. The non-existence of a faster-than-light nonlocality and of paradoxes in EPR-type experiments1 can be proved in the frame of the standard formalism when the reality of backward histories is taken into account.