One photon stored in four places at once
Author(s)
Vuletic, Vladan
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Alternative title
Quantum physics: Entangled quartet
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When light passes through two slits to hit a distant screen, a periodic light pattern emerges that is associated with the interference of the waves emanating from the two sources. Some of quantum physics’ deepest mysteries – or, according to the iconic Richard Feynman, its only mystery – arise when that observation is made with a single particle that, although indivisible, must have passed simultaneously through both slits. Recent advances in the storage of single photons in atomic gases [1] have now enabled a tour-de-force experiment that investigates interference with light stored simultaneously in four spatially distinct atom clouds, as reported on p. xxx of this issue. Chou et al. demonstrate stronger-than-classical correlations (entanglement) in this composite matter-light system, and study how the entanglement gives way to weaker and weaker, and ultimately only classical, correlations.
Date issued
2010-11Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsJournal
Nature
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Vuletic, Vladan. “Quantum physics: Entangled quartet.” Nature 468.7322 (2010): 384-385.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISSN
0028-0836
1476-4687