Artist’s depiction of the twisted-photon entangled state created in the Vienna experiment (Copyright: Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna).
Researchers at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), the University of Vienna, and the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have achieved a new milestone in quantum physics: they were able to entangle three particles of light in a high-dimensional quantum property related to the "twist" of their wavefront structure. Just like Schrödinger's famous cat that is simultaneously dead and alive, all previous demonstrations of multi-particle entanglement have been with quantum objects in two discrete levels, or dimensions. The twisted photons used in the Vienna experiment have no such limit to their dimensionality, and can simultaneously exist in three or more quantum states. The three-photon entangled state created by the Vienna group breaks this previous record of dimensionality, and brings to light a new form of asymmetric entanglement that has not been observed before. The results from their experiment appear Photonics. Entanglement is a counterintuitive property of quantum physics that has long puzzled scientists and philosophers alike. Entangled quanta of light seem to exert an influence on each other, irrespective of how much distance is between them.
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