[O]ne theorist has shown that an exotic quantum effect called entanglement has a real and measurable influence on a gravitational field— the first time this kind of link has ever been shown.
David Bruschi at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel says the new result has important implications for quantum mechanics and relativity and may represent an important step towards a long sought after theory that explains them both.
Bruschi’s idea is simple in principle. Physicists have long known that a single quantum particle can exist in two places at the same time. There is a clear quantum correlation called entanglement between these two locations that is well-defined mathematically in quantum mechanics.
Bruschi’s new approach is to formulate the mathematics in the context of relativity. He first makes the mathematical assumption that some perturbation of a gravitational field is possible in these circumstances.
He then goes on to formulate the mathematical properties of this perturbation and how they evolve when the two locations are maximally entangled and when they are not, a state known as maximally mixed.
He finds that the perturbation is zero when the states are maximally mixed. But in the other case— when the two locations are maximally entangled— the perturbation spreads through space over a scale related to the energy of the particle and the coherence time of the entanglement.
This kind of perturbation is mathematically similar to a gravitational wave, albeit on a much smaller scale. It is essentially equivalent to the particle having some additional weight. And that is what makes it potentially detectable.
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