I've read a few articles by Chris Lee, and I normally like them quite a bit. However, IMO there's something missing from this one, like how does this experiment push the frontier of quantum entanglement research? Is this the most complex entangled state ever created in a lab, or something like that?
The editor’s summary of the linked paper may be of more use:
> The ability to cool levitated nanoparticles to ultralow temperatures for accessing mechanical quantum states of the system provides a platform for probing fundamental physics. Deplano et al. demonstrated the generation of entanglement between a macroscopic mechanical oscillator and a freely propagating optical field. Such optomechanical entanglement at room temperature involving a levitated nanoparticle and a propagating optical mode and could also be used to develop quantum sensing technologies.
I think part of this is simply “no one has ever previously mechanically linked a classical-scale object to quantum-scale entanglement” and they managed to do so, which is pretty cool. To construct a theoretical idea as analogy of sorts: Imagine a supercooled fiberoptic link where the two transceivers both fire a laser at a liquid nitrogen hose filled with glass beads, and so packets end up sent by the tranmissions vibrating the suspended nanospheres entangled with both transceivers which can be sensed instantaneously by the receiver since they’re quantum-mechanically entangled and thus not subject to lightspeed delays, rather than having to wait for a wave packet arriving at the mere speed of light through photonic propagation as they do today. This is probably formally wrong on some level but it’s only meant as an analogy to get a toehold of understanding, not as a statement of outcome or certainty.
I've read a few articles by Chris Lee, and I normally like them quite a bit. However, IMO there's something missing from this one, like how does this experiment push the frontier of quantum entanglement research? Is this the most complex entangled state ever created in a lab, or something like that?
The editor’s summary of the linked paper may be of more use:
> The ability to cool levitated nanoparticles to ultralow temperatures for accessing mechanical quantum states of the system provides a platform for probing fundamental physics. Deplano et al. demonstrated the generation of entanglement between a macroscopic mechanical oscillator and a freely propagating optical field. Such optomechanical entanglement at room temperature involving a levitated nanoparticle and a propagating optical mode and could also be used to develop quantum sensing technologies.
— https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeh1375
I think part of this is simply “no one has ever previously mechanically linked a classical-scale object to quantum-scale entanglement” and they managed to do so, which is pretty cool. To construct a theoretical idea as analogy of sorts: Imagine a supercooled fiberoptic link where the two transceivers both fire a laser at a liquid nitrogen hose filled with glass beads, and so packets end up sent by the tranmissions vibrating the suspended nanospheres entangled with both transceivers which can be sensed instantaneously by the receiver since they’re quantum-mechanically entangled and thus not subject to lightspeed delays, rather than having to wait for a wave packet arriving at the mere speed of light through photonic propagation as they do today. This is probably formally wrong on some level but it’s only meant as an analogy to get a toehold of understanding, not as a statement of outcome or certainty.
this could be used to build an exceptionaly high tech abacus