A scientist trio has won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for their groundbreaking experiments in the field of Quantum Mechanics. The Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded the prestigious 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for conducting the experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science. The Nobel Physics Prize, worth 10 million Swedish krona (≈7.47 Cr INR), will be equally divided between the trio.
Entanglement and Bell’s Inequality
The research interests and applications of the various fields of quantum mechanics like quantum computers, quantum networks and quantum encryption have been increasing rapidly in the recent years. The important factor in this increase is how quantum mechanics allows two or more particles to exist in a state called an entangled state. In this state, what happens to one of the particles in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other particle, even if they are far apart.
The million-dollar question was whether the correlation arises due to the particles in an entangled pair contained some hidden variables with instructions that tell them which result they should give in an experiment. A Northern Ireland physicist John Stewart Bell developed a mathematical inequality in 1960s called Bell’s inequality. Bell’s inequality states that if there are hidden variables, the correlation between the results of a large number of measurements will never exceed a certain value. However, quantum mechanics predicts that a certain type of experiment will violate Bell’s inequality, thus resulting in a stronger correlation than would otherwise be possible.
Quantum Information Science and 2022 Nobel Prize
John Clauser, from J.F. Clauser & Assoc. (USA), developed an apparatus that violates the Bell’s inequality. This means that quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by a theory that uses hidden variables. But this experiment was not completely enough to dispose the Bell’s inequality theorem in quantum mechanics. Alain Aspect, from Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique (France), built a setup in which he was able to switch the measurement settings after an entangled pair had left its source, so the setting that existed when they were emitted could not affect the result. A quantum physicist from University of Vienna (Austria), Anton Zeilinger, and his research group has demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, which makes it possible to move a quantum state from one particle to one at a distance. All these together gave a very clear result: quantum mechanics is correct and there are no hidden variables. This and similar experiments built the foundation to the era of quantum information science. The ability to manipulate and manage quantum states and all their layers of properties gives us access to tools with unexpected potential. The research fields like quantum computation, quantum information and quantum encryption will grant humanity a horizon of endless possibilities.
“It is quite clear that in the near future we will have quantum communication all over the world,” Anton Zeilinger said in press conference by phone.
Last year, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to a scientist trio for their work that helped in understanding the complex systems. You can read all about it here.
Reference:
Author
