In quantum physics, coincidence counting is used in experiments testing particle non-locality and quantum entanglement. In these experiments two or more particles are created from the same initial packet of energy, inexorably linking/entangling their physical properties. Separate particle detectors measure the quantum states of each particle and send the resulting signal to a coincidence counter. In any experiment studying entanglement, the entangled particles are vastly outnumbered by non-entangled particles which are also detected; patternless noise that drowns out the entangled signal. In a two detector system, a coincidence counter alleviates this problem by only recording detection signals that strike both detectors simultaneously (or more accurately, recording only signals that arrive at both detectors and correlate to the same emission time). This ensures that the data represents only entangled particles.
However, since no detector/counter circuit has infinitely precise temporal resolution (due both to limitations in the electronics and the laws of the Universe itself), detections must be sorted into time bins (detection windows equivalent to the temporal resolution of the system). Detections in the same bin appear to occur at the same time because their individual detection times cannot be resolved any further. Thus in a two detector system, two unrelated, non-entangled particles may randomly strike both detectors, get sorted into the same time bin, and create a false-coincidence that adds noise to the signal. This limits coincidence counters to improving the signal-to-noise ratio to the extent that the quantum behavior can be studied, without removing the noise completely.
Every experiment to date that has been used to calculate Bell's inequalities, perform a quantum eraser, or conduct any experiment utilizing quantum entanglement as an information channel has only been possible through the use of coincidence counters.[clarification needed] This unavoidably prevents superluminal communication since, even if a random or purposeful decision appears to be affecting events that have already transpired (as in the delayed choice quantum eraser), the signal from the past cannot be seen/decoded until the coincidence circuit has correlated both the past and future behavior. Thus the "signal" in the past is only visible after it is "sent" from the future, precluding quantum entanglement from being exploited for the purposes of faster-than-light communication or data time travel.
Quantum entanglement is the physical phenomenon that occurs when a group of particles are generated, interact, or share spatial proximity in a way such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance. The topic of quantum entanglement is at the heart of the disparity between classical and quantum physics: entanglement is a primary feature of quantum mechanics lacking in classical mechanics.
Superluminal communication is a hypothetical process in which information is sent at faster-than-light (FTL) speeds. The current scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible, and to date it has not been achieved in any experiment.
Bell's theorem is a term encompassing a number of closely-related results in physics, all of which determine that quantum mechanics is incompatible with local hidden-variable theories. The "local" in this case refers to the principle of locality, the idea that a particle can only be influenced by its immediate surroundings, and that interactions mediated by physical fields can only occur at speeds no greater than the speed of light. "Hidden variables" are hypothetical properties possessed by quantum particles, properties that are undetectable but still affect the outcome of experiments. In the words of physicist John Stewart Bell, for whom this family of results is named, "If [a hidden-variable theory] is local it will not agree with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics it will not be local."
In physics, two wave sources are coherent if their frequency and waveform are identical. Coherence is an ideal property of waves that enables stationary interference. It contains several distinct concepts, which are limiting cases that never quite occur in reality but allow an understanding of the physics of waves, and has become a very important concept in quantum physics. More generally, coherence describes all properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a single wave, or between several waves or wave packets.
In physics, a coincidence circuit is an electronic device with one output and two inputs. The output activates only when the circuit receives signals within a time window accepted as at the same time and in parallel at both inputs. Coincidence circuits are widely used in particle detectors and in other areas of science and technology.
A Bell test, also known as Bell inequality test or Bell experiment, is a real-world physics experiment designed to test the theory of quantum mechanics in relation to Albert Einstein's concept of local realism. The experiments test whether or not the real world satisfies local realism, which requires the presence of some additional local variables to explain the behavior of particles like photons and electrons. To date, all Bell tests have found that the hypothesis of local hidden variables is inconsistent with the way that physical systems behave.
A local hidden-variable theory in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a hidden-variable theory that has the added requirement of being consistent with local realism. It refers to all types of the theory that attempt to account for the probabilistic features of quantum mechanics by the mechanism of underlying inaccessible variables, with the additional requirement from local realism that distant events be independent, ruling out instantaneous interactions between separate events.
The Bell states or EPR pairs are specific quantum states of two qubits that represent the simplest examples of quantum entanglement; conceptually, they fall under the study of quantum information science. The Bell states are a form of entangled and normalized basis vectors. This normalization implies that the overall probability of the particle being in one of the mentioned states is 1: . Entanglement is a basis-independent result of superposition. Due to this superposition, measurement of the qubit will "collapse" it into one of its basis states with a given probability. Because of the entanglement, measurement of one qubit will "collapse" the other qubit to a state whose measurement will yield one of two possible values, where the value depends on which Bell state the two qubits are in initially. Bell states can be generalized to certain quantum states of multi-qubit systems, such as the GHZ state for 3 or more subsystems.
The Afshar experiment is a variation of the double slit experiment in quantum mechanics, devised and carried out by Shahriar Afshar while at the private, Boston-based Institute for Radiation-Induced Mass Studies (IRIMS). The results were presented at a Harvard seminar in March 2004. Afshar claimed that the experiment gives information about which of two paths a photon takes through the apparatus while simultaneously allowing interference between the two paths to be observed, by showing that a grid of wires, placed at the nodes of the interference pattern, does not alter the beams. Afshar claimed that the experiment violates the principle of complementarity of quantum mechanics, which states roughly that the particle and wave aspects of quantum objects cannot be observed at the same time, and specifically the Englert–Greenberger duality relation. The experiment has been repeated by a number of investigators but its interpretation is controversial and there are several theories that explain the effect without violating complementarity.
In quantum mechanics, the quantum eraser experiment is an interferometer experiment that demonstrates several fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics, including quantum entanglement and complementarity. The quantum eraser experiment is a variation of Thomas Young's classic double-slit experiment. It establishes that when action is taken to determine which of 2 slits a photon has passed through, the photon cannot interfere with itself. When a stream of photons is marked in this way, then the interference fringes characteristic of the Young experiment will not be seen. The experiment also creates situations in which a photon that has been "marked" to reveal through which slit it has passed can later be "unmarked." A photon that has been "marked" cannot interfere with itself and will not produce fringe patterns, but a photon that has been "marked" and then "unmarked" will interfere with itself and produce the fringes characteristic of Young's experiment.
A delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment, first performed by Yoon-Ho Kim, R. Yu, S. P. Kulik, Y. H. Shih and Marlan O. Scully, and reported in early 1999, is an elaboration on the quantum eraser experiment that incorporates concepts considered in Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment. The experiment was designed to investigate peculiar consequences of the well-known double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics, as well as the consequences of quantum entanglement.
Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment is actually several thought experiments in quantum physics, proposed by John Archibald Wheeler, with the most prominent among them appearing in 1978 and 1984. These experiments are attempts to decide whether light somehow "senses" the experimental apparatus in the double-slit experiment it will travel through and adjusts its behavior to fit by assuming the appropriate determinate state for it, or whether light remains in an indeterminate state, exhibiting both wave-like and particle-like behavior until measured.
Quantum radar is a speculative remote-sensing technology based on quantum-mechanical effects, such as the uncertainty principle or quantum entanglement. Broadly speaking, a quantum radar can be seen as a device working in the microwave range, which exploits quantum features, from the point of view of the radiation source and/or the output detection, and is able to outperform a classical counterpart. One approach is based on the use of input quantum correlations combined with a suitable interferometric quantum detection at the receiver.
Popper's experiment is an experiment proposed by the philosopher Karl Popper to put to the test different interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM). In fact, as early as 1934, Popper started criticising the increasingly more accepted Copenhagen interpretation, a popular subjectivist interpretation of quantum mechanics. Therefore, in his most famous book Logik der Forschung he proposed a first experiment alleged to empirically discriminate between the Copenhagen Interpretation and a realist interpretation, which he advocated. Einstein, however, wrote a letter to Popper about the experiment in which he raised some crucial objections and Popper himself declared that this first attempt was "a gross mistake for which I have been deeply sorry and ashamed of ever since".
Quantum imaging is a new sub-field of quantum optics that exploits quantum correlations such as quantum entanglement of the electromagnetic field in order to image objects with a resolution or other imaging criteria that is beyond what is possible in classical optics. Examples of quantum imaging are quantum ghost imaging, quantum lithography, sub-shot-noise imaging, and quantum sensing. Quantum imaging may someday be useful for storing patterns of data in quantum computers and transmitting large amounts of highly secure encrypted information. Quantum mechanics has shown that light has inherent “uncertainties” in its features, manifested as moment-to-moment fluctuations in its properties. Controlling these fluctuations—which represent a sort of “noise”—can improve detection of faint objects, produce better amplified images, and allow workers to more accurately position laser beams.
Photon counting is a technique in which individual photons are counted using a single-photon detector (SPD). A single-photon detector emits a pulse of signal for each detected photon, in contrast to a normal photodetector, which generates an analog signal proportional to the photon flux. The number of pulses is counted, giving an integer number of photons detected per measurement interval. The counting efficiency is determined by the quantum efficiency and the system's electronic losses.
Quantum illumination is a paradigm for target detection that employs quantum entanglement between a signal electromagnetic mode and an idler electromagnetic mode, as well as joint measurement of these modes. The signal mode is propagated toward a region of space, and it is either lost or reflected, depending on whether a target is absent or present, respectively. In principle, quantum illumination can be beneficial even if the original entanglement is completely destroyed by a lossy and noisy environment.
Quantum microscopy allows microscopic properties of matter and quantum particles to be measured and imaged. Various types of microscopy use quantum principles. The first microscope to do so was the scanning tunneling microscope, which paved the way for development of the photoionization microscope and the quantum entanglement microscope.
Aspect's experiment was the first quantum mechanics experiment to demonstrate the violation of Bell's inequalities. Its irrefutable result allowed for further validation of the quantum entanglement and locality principles. It also offered an experimental answer to Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen's paradox which had been proposed about fifty years earlier.
Quantum secret sharing (QSS) is a quantum cryptographic scheme for secure communication that extends beyond simple quantum key distribution. It modifies the classical secret sharing (CSS) scheme by using quantum information and the no-cloning theorem to attain the ultimate security for communications.
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