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Physics World

Paradoxical pigeons aid quantum understanding

Published Sep 1, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

You’ve heard of Schrödinger’s cat – but now, an international team of physicists has come up with a new mind-bending animal-related paradox called the “quantum pigeonhole effect”.
DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/27/09/08

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arXiv:2102.09979•Physical Review A•Jul 16, 2021•7 citations
A kind of paradoxical effects has been demonstrated that the pigeonhole principle, i.e., if three pigeons are put in two pigeonholes then at least two pigeons must stay in the same hole, fails in certain quantum mechanical scenario. Here we shall show how to associate a proof of Kochen-Specker theorem with a quantum pigeonhole effect and vise versa, e.g., from state-independent proofs of Kochen-Specker theorem some kind of state-independent quantum pigeonhole effects can be demonstrated. In particular, a state-independent version of the quantum Cheshire cat, which can be rendered as a kind of quantum pigeonhole effect about the trouble of putting two pigeons in two or more pigeonholes, arises from Peres-Mermin's magic square proof of contextuality.
It was recently argued that the pigeonhole principle, which states that if three pigeons are put into two pigeonholes then at least one pigeonhole must contain more than one pigeon, is violated in quantum systems [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 113, 532 (2016)]. An experimental verification of this effect was recently reported [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 116, 1549 (2019)]. In another recent experimental work, it was argued that two entities were observed to exchange properties without meeting each other [Nat. Commun. 11, 3006 (2020)]. Here we describe all these proposals and experiments as simple quantum interference effects where no such dramatic conclusions appear. Besides demystifying some of the conclusions of the cited works, we also present physical insights for some interesting behaviors present in these treatments. For instance, we associate the anomalous particles behaviors in the quantum pigeonhole effect to a quantum interference of force.