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Nature 445, 605-606 (8 February 2007) | doi:10.1038/445605a; Published online 7 February 2007
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Quantum physics: Indistinguishable from afar
Michael Fleischhauer1
Abstract
Imprinting a coherent light pulse on the spins of atoms is standard quantum sorcery. Retrieving the same light pulse from a second, distant set of atoms looks rather like black magic. But it, too, is just quantum mechanics.
In the quantum world, particles of the same kind are indistinguishable: the wavefunction that describes them is a superposition of every single particle of that kind occupying every allowed state. Strictly speaking, this means that we can't talk, for instance, about an electron on Earth without mentioning all the electrons on the Moon in the same breath.
- Michael Fleischhauer is in the Fachbereich Physik, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schrödinger-Stra
e, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Email: mfleisch@physik.uni-kl.de
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