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Quarks show that quantum entanglement holds at high energies

By smashing protons together at blinding speeds, scientists have shown that pairs of quarks display the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. The result could lead to fresh insight about one of the forces holding nuclei together.
  1. Martin Hentschinski

    1. Martin Hentschinski is in the Department of Actuarial Sciences, Physics and Mathematics, Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Puebla 72820, Mexico.

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If two particles are entangled, the quantum mechanical state of each particle cannot be described independently of that of the other. Entanglement has been observed several times1–4 and is key to developments in quantum computing and quantum cryptography. In a paper in Nature, the ATLAS Collaboration5 reports the detection of entanglement between a top quark and its antiparticle, the anti-top quark, at CERN, the European particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. The observation is not unexpected. Indeed, it would have been a huge surprise to find that the pair wasn’t entangled. But to observe entanglement at such high energies is an astonishing feat — all the more so because it was detected in a pair of quarks, the fundamental particles making up all atomic nuclei.

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Nature 633, 531-532 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02801-y

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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