The intention of this paper is to provide an easy to understand introduction to the peculiarities of entangled systems. A novel description for strong (mass entanglement) and weak (spin-or-bital and thermal entanglement) quantum entangled particles is discussed and applied to the phenomena of superconductivity, superfluidity and ultracold gases. A brief statement about how to represent the physical reality of quantum-entanglement as Quantum-Field-Theory (QFT) is noted.
The word “nature” is derived from the Latin word natura with the physical meaning of “essential quality” or “innate disposition”. In this sense I would like to show you how conservation laws and entanglement are inevitable parts of our physical thoughts.
A conservation law states that a particular measurable property of a physical system doesn’t change as the system evolves, where entanglement describes the correlated evolution of the whole physical system to retain these conservation laws. In classical physics conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum, mass and electric charge are common conservation laws. In particle physics other conservation laws such as baryon number, lepton number and strangeness apply to properties of subatomic particles that are invariant during an interaction.
In the following I want to introduce a novel description for strong (mass entanglement) and weak (spin-orbital and thermal entanglement) quantum entangled particles and to present some applications for the concept of quantum entanglement. In case of strong entangled particles the entanglement can’t be shared with its environment, while weak entangled particles such as cooper-pairs or Bose-Einstein-condensates (BEC) can easily change its shape, where only the overall entanglement stays the same.
A fundamental aspect of physical thoughts is the principle of a homogeneous time development. As a result its influence on the interpretation of natural phenomena is very imperative. Formally the principle of a homogeneous time will be represented by the law of conservation of energy. Einstein showed in his theory of special relativity [
This means one can convert mass into energy (nuclear fission in the sun) and energy into mass (particle generation in high energy physics).
Another aspect of matter and energy was postulated by Louis de Broglie [
A single electron, injected from the top, can pass the thin wire to the right and to the left. Accordingly the entangled matter-wave Ψ underneath the wire can be written as
where X is a symbol to denote the strong entanglement due to mass conservation.
The probability to find a punctual interaction of the mass entangled matter-wave with the screen at point x is equivalent to the square of the matter-wave. Due to the fact that Ψr, Ψl differ in their path and phase, the phenomenon that a single electron can interfere with itself, occur. In case of an interaction the entire entangled matter wave interact as a whole to preserve mass conservation. This is the well known wave-particle duality.
Entangled matter-waves are the most appropriate representation for masses, where the particulate characteristic is caused by mass conservation. Correspondingly a single photon is composed of energy entangled waves with a continuous energy and direction distribution, thus a single photon can also interfere with itself, showing wave-particle duality.
In spacious systems the spin entanglement induces a spooky distant effect [
If we carefully align the spin of one atom in a magnetic field, the other must be oriented simultaneously in the opposite direction to conserve the total spin of both atoms, even though it is not in the vicinity. In other words, you can play with Schrödinger’s cat while it’s in the box. This “alignment” doesn’t act as a force, where the first spin turns the second around, only the information about which state has to interact is “transferred” to the second spin to preserve the total spin of the entangled system.
At 0 ˚K almost all matter is in the lowest energy-state possible which I call the coherent state. In this state a system must interact as a whole, for example a solid shows a perfect Mößbauer effect or a fluid becomes a superfluid. Increasing the temperature result in distortions of the system and part of the system lose their coherence due to thermal chaos, where only the overall entanglement stays the same. The system gets split into coherent and normal phases where the length of coherence indicates the average size of coherent areas.
The electrons in an atom are fragmented into paired wave-functions (orbitals) of constant energy but antipodal spin (entangled spins), which induces a partly bosonic characteristic [
At 0 ˚K the orbitals of all atoms in a flawless crystal are perfectly spin entangled and the width of an energy band is reduced to a single value (BEC ground state for this energy band). The material is in the superconducting state.
Increasing the temperature result in distortions of the lattice and part of the orbitals lose their entanglement (bosonic characteristic) due to thermal chaos, where only the overall spin stays the same. The body gets split into coherent and solid phases. Below a critical temperature Tc the coherent phases are interconnected, forming a percolating superconducting backbone. Above Tc the density of the coherent phases is to low to form up a percolating backbone and the body is in the normal conducting state.
The effect of superfluidity was first discovered in 1937 by Pyotr Kapitsa, John F. Allen and Don Misener at temperatures as low as 2.2 ˚K [
In a cavity superfluid Helium can flow over a barrier into a second basin with a lower gravitational potential. Responsible for this phenomenon is a thin superfluid layer (Rollin film) covering everything within the cavity. In the entangled state of aggregation an atom at A is thermally entangled with an atom at B. Both can only move the same way (coherent motion) and analog to the principle of corresponding pipes a flow takes place toward the basin with the lower gravitational potential.
Ultracold gases are produced by a sequence of different cooling steps. Usually a couple of atoms are cooled using a laser. These atoms can be caught in a magneto optical trap. To reach the lowest possible temperature of the gas, the trap is adjusted so that the atoms with the highest temperature can evaporate out of the gas [
Depending on the temperature where the aggregation takes place, different gases can be generated.
When the temperature is high enough, the entanglements of the particles can be transferred to the gas. This gas is able to form a BEC.
If the aggregation temperature of the gas is to low to break the long ranged entanglements of the particles with its source, no BEC can be formed. The gas behaves like a perfect fermionic gas.
Some scientists may say that a quantum mechanical system is defined by the states their elements can reach and after assigning occupation probabilities they know everything about it. I hope I am able to show you that this is not in general the case. I don’t believe that a quantum mechanical system where entanglement is present can be separated into elemental parts, where their fundamental properties like the entropy can be simply added up. Only the system as a whole defines measurable states. In general the system is in all these states simultaneously and the entanglement forces that a measurement gives a value for one state. A more fanciful opinion may say that Schrödinger’s cat exists in an entangled quantum-multiverse until it is forced to interact at which the entanglement defines a single universe. With respect to the observed pattern in
I wonder if it is possible to understand for example the exchange of virtual photons in quantum-electrody- namics (QED) as information exchange in an entanglement driven sense. Due to an interaction (in QED described by the exchange of a virtual photon), the quantum-multiverse is forced to define a single universe. With this in mind, Quantum Field Theories provide a suitable mathematical abstraction for the physical reality of quantum entanglement.
JensCordelair, (2015) Entanglement: A Modern Aspect of Nature. World Journal of Condensed Matter Physics,05,244-248. doi: 10.4236/wjcmp.2015.53025