Research reveals quantum entanglement among quarks

Collisions of high-energy particles produce “jets” of quarks, antiquarks or gluons. Due to a phenomenon called confinement, scientists cannot detect quarks directly. Instead, quarks from these collisions fragment into many secondary particles that can be detected.

Scientists have recently addressed jet production using quantum simulations. They discovered that the propagating jets strongly modify the quantum vacuum, with the quantum state having the lowest possible energy. Additionally, the produced quarks retain quantum entanglement, the connection between particles over distances. This discovery, published in Physical Examination Lettersmeans that scientists can now study this entanglement in experiments.

This research performed quantum simulations that detected the modification of the vacuum by the propagating jets. The simulations also revealed quantum entanglement between the jets. This entanglement can be detected in nuclear experiments. This work also represents a step forward in quantum-inspired classical computing. This could lead to the creation of new application-specific integrated circuits.

Collisions of high-energy particles produce “jets”: quarks, antiquarks or gluons moving in the quantum vacuum. Due to the confinement property of strong interactions, quarks are never detected directly but fragment into numerous secondary particles.

Scientists have long expected that jets propagating in the confining quantum vacuum would modify that vacuum. The scientists also proposed that the initial quark-antiquark pair may retain quantum entanglement, at least for some time. However, these problems could not be solved previously due to the lack of appropriate theoretical and computational tools.

This situation has changed with the advent of quantum computing methods.

These long-standing problems in nuclear physics have been solved by a team of scientists from Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory collaborating with computer company NVIDIA. Their results may spur experimental work on entanglement detection at Brookhaven National Lab and elsewhere.