Objective: Four laboratory studies and an online experiment explored psychophysical (mind-matter) interactions with quantum entangled photons. Method: Entanglement correlation strength measured in real-time was presented via a graph or dynamic images displayed on a computer monitor or web browser. Participants were tasked with mentally influencing that metric. Results: A statistically significant increase in entanglement strength was obtained in experimental conditions in the four lab studies (p < 0.02), with particularly strong results observed in three studies conducted at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (p < 0.0002). Modest results (p < 0.05) were observed in a high-quality subset of entanglement samples in an online experiment. Control experiments using the same equipment and protocols, but without observers present, showed results consistent with chance expectation in both the lab and online studies. Conclusion: These outcomes suggest that the fidelity of entangled states and the nonlocal resource they entail may be mutable in systems that include conscious awareness. This is potentially of interest for quantum information technologies such as quantum computation, encryption, key distribution, and teleportation. The results are also relevant for interpretations of quantum theory, especially if future studies show that entanglement strength can be mentally modulated above the Tsirelson Bound – the upper limit predicted by quantum theory. Such an outcome would suggest that quantum theory in its present form does not hold when physical systems interact with certain mental states. The results of these exploratory experiments justify continued investigation of entangled photons as targets of mind-matter interaction.
Objective: Four laboratory studies and an online experiment explored psychophysical (mind-matter) interactions with quantum entangled photons. Method: Entanglement correlation strength measured in real-time was presented via a graph or dynamic images displayed on a computer monitor or web browser. Participants were tasked with mentally influencing that metric. Results: A statistically significant increase in entanglement strength was obtained in experimental conditions in the four lab studies (p < 0.02), with particularly strong results observed in three studies conducted at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (p < 0.0002). Modest results (p < 0.05) were observed in a high-quality subset of entanglement samples in an online experiment. Control experiments using the same equipment and protocols, but without observers present, showed results consistent with chance expectation in both the lab and online studies. Conclusion: These outcomes suggest that the fidelity of entangled states and the nonlocal resource they entail may be mutable in systems that include conscious awareness. This is potentially of interest for quantum information technologies such as quantum computation, encryption, key distribution, and teleportation. The results are also relevant for interpretations of quantum theory, especially if future studies show that entanglement strength can be mentally modulated above the Tsirelson Bound – the upper limit predicted by quantum theory. Such an outcome would suggest that quantum theory in its present form does not hold when physical systems interact with certain mental states. The results of these exploratory experiments justify continued investigation of entangled photons as targets of mind-matter interaction.
Objective: Four laboratory studies and an online experiment explored psychophysical (mind-matter) interactions with quantum entangled photons. Method: Entanglement correlation strength measured in real-time was presented via a graph or dynamic images displayed on a computer monitor or web browser. Participants were tasked with mentally influencing that metric. Results: A statistically significant increase in entanglement strength was obtained in experimental conditions in the four lab studies (p < 0.02), with particularly strong results observed in three studies conducted at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (p < 0.0002). Modest results (p < 0.05) were observed in a high-quality subset of entanglement samples in an online experiment. Control experiments using the same equipment and protocols, but without observers present, showed results consistent with chance expectation in both the lab and online studies. Conclusion: These outcomes suggest that the fidelity of entangled states and the nonlocal resource they entail may be mutable in systems that include conscious awareness. This is potentially of interest for quantum information technologies such as quantum computation, encryption, key distribution, and teleportation. The results are also relevant for interpretations of quantum theory, especially if future studies show that entanglement strength can be mentally modulated above the Tsirelson Bound – the upper limit predicted by quantum theory. Such an outcome would suggest that quantum theory in its present form does not hold when physical systems interact with certain mental states. The results of these exploratory experiments justify continued investigation of entangled photons as targets of mind-matter interaction.
The rapidly developing interdisciplinary field of quantum information, which merges quantum and information science, studies non-classical aspects of quantum systems. These studies are motivated by the promise that the non-classicality can be used to solve tasks more efficiently than classical methods would allow. In many quantum informational studies, non-classical behaviour is attributed to the notion of entanglement. In this thesis we use photons to experimentally investigate fundamental questions such as: What happens to the entanglement in a system when it is affected by noise? In our study of noisy entanglement we pursue the challenging task of creating bound entanglement. Bound entangled states are created through an irreversible process that requires entanglement. Once in the bound regime, entanglement cannot be distilled out through local operations assisted by classical communication. We show that it is possible to experimentally produce four-photon bound entangled states and that a violation of a Bell inequality can be achieved. Moreover, we demonstrate an entanglement-unlocking protocol by relaxing the condition of local operations. We also explore the non-classical nature of quantum mechanics in several single-photon experiments. In these experiments, we show the violation of various inequalities that were derived under the assumption of non-contextuality. Using qutrits we construct and demonstrate the simplest possible test that offers a discrepancy between classical and quantum theory. Furthermore, we perform an experiment in the spirit of the Kochen-Specker theorem to illustrate the state-independence of this theorem. Here, we investigate whether or not measurement outcomes exhibit fully contextual correlations. That is, no part of the correlations can be attributed to the non-contextual theory. Our results show that only a small part of the experimental generated correlations are amenable to a non-contextual interpretation.
In experiments with physical noise generators based on electronic or photonic quantum events, significant deviations from random distributions have been repeatedly observed. To explain these effects, intention-based interactions between consciousness and mind with physical random processes have been suggested, either being caused by individual minds or by a proposed global mind. As these explanations involve physically undefined objects such as “mind” and “consciousness”, an explanatory model based on the concept of an information field is given herein, based on the concept of generalized quantum entanglement, including the entanglement of physical noise processes with information fields and an analogy to quantum teleportation. In addition, the non-random hypothesis of using such a physical noise generator in capturing qualitative characteristics of individuals is tested in a randomized controlled study with 100 participants.
Quantum entanglement has gained significant attention in recent years owing to its diverse application in quantum informatics. Its nonlocal nature makes it a crucial resource in quantum information, especially in quantum communication and networking. Entanglement plays a vital role in advancing quantum computation and technology.This study discusses the creation of entangled quantum states using photon pairs and the measurement of entanglement, utilizing the IBM Q Experience the first industrial initiative to develop universal quantum computers and provide widespread access to these technologies through cloud platforms. The introduction of the Qiskit tool has enabled researchers, educators, developers, and enthusiasts to write code and conduct experiments on quantum machines. In this study, we implemented and tested circuits on the IBM Q quantum computing platform using Qiskit to execute quantum computing programs such as the Bell Inequality, CHSH Inequality, and Five-Qubit GHZ States, with two successful programming presented, these tools, along with the associated Jupyter Notebook pages, serve as additional resources for users of the IBM Q Experience. We present the results which will help evaluate these prototypes’ performance. Where quantum computers are designed to process information units that go beyond mere abstract mathematical entities, as suggested by Shannon’s theory; instead, they represent real physical objects defined by one of the two fundamental physical theories—quantum mechanics.
Nonlocality is arguably among the most counterintuitive phenomena predicted by quantum theory.In recent years, the development of an abstract theory of nonlocality has brought a much deeper understanding of the subject, revealing a rich and complex phenomenon.In the current work, we present a systematic experimental exploration of the limits of quantum nonlocality.Using a versatile and high-fidelity source of pairs of polarization-entangled photons, we explore the boundary of quantum correlations, demonstrate the counterintuitive effect of more nonlocality with less entanglement, present the most nonlocal correlations ever reported, and achieve quantum correlations requiring the use of complex qubits.All of our results are in remarkable agreement with quantum predictions, and thus represent a thorough test of quantum theory.Pursuing such an approach is nevertheless highly desirable, as any deviation may provide evidence of new physics beyond the quantum model.
An experiment we conducted from 2012 to 2013, which had not been previously reported, was designed to explore possible psychophysical effects resulting from the interaction of a human mind with a quantum system. Participants focused their attention toward or away from the slits in a double-slit optical system to see if the interference pattern would be affected. Data were collected from 25 people in individual half-hour sessions; each person repeated the test ten times for a total of 250 planned sessions. “Sham” sessions designed to mimic the experimental sessions without observers present were run immediately before and after as controls. Based on the planned analysis, no evidence for a psychophysical effect was found. Because this experiment differed in two essential ways from similar, previously reported double-slit experiments, two exploratory analyses were developed, one based on a simple spectral analysis of the interference pattern and the other based on fringe visibility. For the experimental data, the outcome supported a pattern of results predicted by a causal psychophysical effect, with the spectral metric resulting in a 3.4 sigma effect (p = 0.0003), and the fringe visibility metric resulting in 7 of 22 fringes tested above 2.3 sigma after adjustment for type I error inflation, with one of those fringes at 4.3 sigma above chance (p = 0.00001). The same analyses applied to the sham data showed uniformly null outcomes. Other analyses exploring the potential that these results were due to mundane artifacts, such as fluctuations in temperature or vibration, showed no evidence of such influences. Future studies using the same protocols and analytical methods will be required to determine if these exploratory results are idiosyncratic or reflect a genuine psychophysical influence.