This discovery highlights the potential of high-energy colliders such as the HAC as platforms for the study of quantum mechanics and quantum information.

Scientists have previously conducted experiments demonstrating entanglement in a variety of contexts, involving objects ranging from photons to molecules to macroscopic diamonds.

However, measuring the entanglement between quarks, the most basic building blocks of matter, has presented significant difficulties. In particular, neither top and bottom quarks, which are integral components of protons and neutrons, nor heavier real quarks, which arise only in high-energy collisions in particle colliders, can be directly observed as free particles.

quantum entanglement

It is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum mechanics that establishes a mysterious connection between two objects that allows instantaneous transfer of states regardless of the physical distance separating them.

The unique properties of the real quark make it an ideal candidate for measuring entanglement. It is the heaviest elementary particle, with a mass 184 times greater than the mass of the proton, making it incredibly unstable and decaying in just 10^-25 seconds. During decay, the actual quark spin is transferred to decay products, including leptons.

Spin conservation occurs because other processes, such as spin decoration or the formation of hadrons from quarks and gluons, occur on much longer time scales. So scientists can predict the spin of a real quark based on its decay products.

Unlike previous experiments aimed at studying the entanglement of real quarks, the ATLAS experiment differs in that it operates at an energy threshold that supports the creation of real quark pairs. At this energy level, real quarks exhibit maximum entanglement.

An important experiment

For their observations, the research team used data from three years of observations of proton-proton collisions at energy 13 TeV as part of the ATLAS project. By comparing the values ​​of angular distances at the entanglement threshold with cases where no signs of entanglement were observed, physicists were able to calculate the degree of entanglement between actual pairs of quarks with a high confidence of exceeding five standard deviations.

The research paves the way for interdisciplinary collaboration aimed at uncovering physics beyond the Standard Model. This revolutionary observation opens new ways to explore the mysteries of the quantum world at previously unattainable energy levels.