Entanglement is a key feature of quantum mechanics1–3, with applications in fields such as metrology, cryptography, quantum information and quantum computation4–8. It has been observed in a wide variety of systems and length scales, ranging from the microscopic9–13 to the macroscopic14–16. However, entanglement remains largely unexplored at the highest accessible energy scales. Here we report the highest-energy observation of entanglement, in top–antitop quark events produced at the Large Hadron Collider, using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 inverse femtobarns (fb)−1 recorded with the ATLAS experiment. Spin entanglement is detected from the measurement of a single observable D, inferred from the angle between the charged leptons in their parent top- and antitop-quark rest frames. The observable is measured in a narrow interval around the top–antitop quark production threshold, at which the entanglement detection is expected to be significant. It is reported in a fiducial phase space defined with stable particles to minimize the uncertainties that stem from the limitations of the Monte Carlo event generators and the parton shower model in modelling top-quark pair production. The entanglement marker is measured to be D = −0.537 ± 0.002 (stat.) ± 0.019 (syst.) for 340GeV<380GeV. The observed result is more than five standard deviations from a scenario without entanglement and hence constitutes the first observation of entanglement in a pair of quarks and the highest-energy observation of entanglement so far.

Observation of quantum entanglement with top quarks at the ATLAS detector / Zwalinski, L., Zou, W., Zormpa, O., Zorbas, T.G., Zoch, K., Zoccoli, A., Zivkovic, L., Ziolkowski, M., Zinsser, J., Zimine, N.I., Zhukov, K., Zhuang, X., Zhu, Y., Zhu, J., Zhu, C.G., Zhou, Y., Zhou, N., Zhou, H., Zhou, B., Zhong, D., et al.. - In: NATURE. - ISSN 0028-0836. - 633:8030(2024), pp. 542-547. [10.1038/s41586-024-07824-z]

Observation of quantum entanglement with top quarks at the ATLAS detector

Ricci E.;Mascione D.;Iuppa R.;Follega F. M.;
2024-01-01

Abstract

Entanglement is a key feature of quantum mechanics1–3, with applications in fields such as metrology, cryptography, quantum information and quantum computation4–8. It has been observed in a wide variety of systems and length scales, ranging from the microscopic9–13 to the macroscopic14–16. However, entanglement remains largely unexplored at the highest accessible energy scales. Here we report the highest-energy observation of entanglement, in top–antitop quark events produced at the Large Hadron Collider, using a proton–proton collision dataset with a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 140 inverse femtobarns (fb)−1 recorded with the ATLAS experiment. Spin entanglement is detected from the measurement of a single observable D, inferred from the angle between the charged leptons in their parent top- and antitop-quark rest frames. The observable is measured in a narrow interval around the top–antitop quark production threshold, at which the entanglement detection is expected to be significant. It is reported in a fiducial phase space defined with stable particles to minimize the uncertainties that stem from the limitations of the Monte Carlo event generators and the parton shower model in modelling top-quark pair production. The entanglement marker is measured to be D = −0.537 ± 0.002 (stat.) ± 0.019 (syst.) for 340GeV<380GeV. The observed result is more than five standard deviations from a scenario without entanglement and hence constitutes the first observation of entanglement in a pair of quarks and the highest-energy observation of entanglement so far.
2024
8030
Zwalinski, L.; Zou, W.; Zormpa, O.; Zorbas, T. G.; Zoch, K.; Zoccoli, A.; Zivkovic, L.; Ziolkowski, M.; Zinsser, J.; Zimine, N. I.; Zhukov, K.; Zhuang...espandi
Observation of quantum entanglement with top quarks at the ATLAS detector / Zwalinski, L., Zou, W., Zormpa, O., Zorbas, T.G., Zoch, K., Zoccoli, A., Zivkovic, L., Ziolkowski, M., Zinsser, J., Zimine, N.I., Zhukov, K., Zhuang, X., Zhu, Y., Zhu, J., Zhu, C.G., Zhou, Y., Zhou, N., Zhou, H., Zhou, B., Zhong, D., et al.. - In: NATURE. - ISSN 0028-0836. - 633:8030(2024), pp. 542-547. [10.1038/s41586-024-07824-z]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/436977
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