Detection of quantum-vacuum field correlations outside the light cone.
Journal
Nature communications
ISSN: 2041-1723
Titre abrégé: Nat Commun
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101528555
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
13 Jun 2022
13 Jun 2022
Historique:
received:
16
12
2021
accepted:
01
06
2022
entrez:
13
6
2022
pubmed:
14
6
2022
medline:
14
6
2022
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
According to quantum field theory, empty space-the ground state with all real excitations removed-is not empty, but filled with quantum-vacuum fluctuations. Their presence can manifest itself through phenomena such as the Casimir force, spontaneous emission, or dispersion forces. These fluctuating fields possess correlations between space-time points outside the light cone, i.e. points causally disconnected according to special relativity. As a consequence, two initially uncorrelated quantum objects in empty space which are located in causally disconnected space-time regions, and therefore unable to exchange information, can become correlated. Here, we have experimentally demonstrated the existence of correlations of the vacuum fields for non-causally connected space-time points by using electro-optic sampling. This result is obtained by detecting vacuum-induced correlations between two 195 fs laser pulses separated by a time of flight of 470 fs. This work marks a first step in analyzing the space-time structure of vacuum correlations in quantum field theory.
Identifiants
pubmed: 35697669
doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-31081-1
pii: 10.1038/s41467-022-31081-1
pmc: PMC9192708
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
3383Subventions
Organisme : Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Swiss National Science Foundation)
ID : 200020 192330/1
Organisme : Swiss National Science Foundation | National Center of Competence in Research Quantum Science and Technology (NCCR 'QSIT - Quantum Science and Technology')
ID : 51NF40-185902
Informations de copyright
© 2022. The Author(s).
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