Researchers have designed an optical experiment for testing the newly discovered 'entropic uncertainty principle'
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle — a cornerstone of quantum physics — states that one cannot simultaneously measure two commutable observables (position and momentum, for example) of a particle with absolute precision. A theoretical group recently proposed a modified version — the entropic uncertainty principle — that suggests quantum entanglement may help to reduce uncertainty to zero. However, experimental verification of this idea has proved to be a significant challenge.
Chuanfeng Li at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei have now designed an optical experiment for testing the entropic uncertainty principle. The experiment is special because it not only violates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle but also allows one to witness quantum entanglement.
One of the findings made in the course of the experiment was that the entropic uncertainty principle is both observable-dependent and observer-dependent. This has important implications in quantum physics and widespread applications in quantum computing and quantum cryptography.
The authors of this work are from:
Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China; Center for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Nature China |Research Hightlights:
http://www.nature.com/nchina/2011/111005/full/nchina.2011.78.html