WASHINGTON -- A noted group of Austrian scientists yesterday reported the first long-distance demonstration of "quantum entanglement" through open space -- a baby step toward possibly someday sending objects to distant places in "beam-me-up-Scotty" transport machines and performing other science-fiction marvels.
Quantum entanglement is a strange phenomenon -- Albert Einstein called it "spooky" -- and it underpins research on a new generation of ultra-powerful quantum computers, unbreakable codes and other revolutionary technology.
It has even lent credence to ideas like teleportation, in which an object disappears in one place and reappears in another. The original "Star Trek" television series popularized the idea, with Scotty, chief engineer of the starship Enterprise, beaming people through space.
"Being able to preserve quantum entanglement over large distances is a very important development in the possibility of using quantum mechanics to transfer information in a coded form from one place to another, and toward quantum computers," said Dr. Lawrence M. Kraus, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who wrote the book, "The Physics of Trek."
"However, alas, we won't be transporting ourselves anytime soon. All of this relies on creating and preserving very specially prepared quantum mechanical states. And unfortunately, we are not such states."
He got no argument from Dr. Markus Aspelmeyer, the scientist who headed the Austrian research group at the University of Vienna that wrote the report, which was published online yesterday by the journal Science. Aspelmeyer described communication systems and ultra-secure codes as the most likely practical applications of the work.
"In the long run, the additional utilization of satellites might allow such quantum communication schemes on a global scale," he said.
"Quantum" refers to the world of the ultra-small -- the invisible particles that make up atoms. Subatomic particles behave in strange ways, following different rules from objects in the visible world.
Quantum rules say that when two particles are put into the same state, or condition, they stay connected forever. They continue to mirror each other's condition, no matter how far they're separated. What's done to one affects the other instantly.
Both particles might start with a positive electric charge and then be separated by a billion miles. But if the charge in one is changed to negative, so is the other's, in virtually the same instant. Somehow, the information travels from one particle to the other faster than the speed of light.
Physicists term the phenomenon "quantum entanglement." It's a key research topic among both academic scientists and organizations like IBM, Hewlett-Packard and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which hope to use it in new communications and computing systems.
Aspelmeyer's group demonstrated that particles of light, or photons, remain entangled and communicate their states through the open air over a distance of almost a half-mile.
Scientists previously demonstrated entanglement between particles separated by short distances, or connected by fiber-optic lines. Existing communication lines can carry photons for only limited distances, making open-air entanglement the best hope for global communication systems, Aspelmeyer explained.
Moving quantum information around also has potential in super-powerful computers because a quantum particle can exist in an infinite number of overlapping states at the same time. They could be used like mini-parallel computers, each solving one part of a tough problem, with the results combined to produce a solution.
Michael Woods can be reached at mwoods@nationalpress.com or 1-202-662-7072.
