Bell Test over Extremely High-Loss Channels: Towards Distributing Entangled Photon Pairs between Earth and the Moon

Yuan Cao, Yu-Huai Li, Wen-Jie Zou, Zheng-Ping Li, Qi Shen, Sheng-Kai Liao, Ji-Gang Ren, Juan Yin, Yu-Ao Chen, Cheng-Zhi Peng, and Jian-Wei Pan
Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 140405 – Published 5 April 2018
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Abstract

Quantum entanglement was termed “spooky action at a distance” in the well-known paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. Entanglement is expected to be distributed over longer and longer distances in both practical applications and fundamental research into the principles of nature. Here, we present a proposal for distributing entangled photon pairs between Earth and the Moon using a Lagrangian point at a distance of 1.28 light seconds. One of the most fascinating features in this long-distance distribution of entanglement is as follows. One can perform the Bell test with human supplying the random measurement settings and recording the results while still maintaining spacelike intervals. To realize a proof-of-principle experiment, we develop an entangled photon source with 1 GHz generation rate, about 2 orders of magnitude higher than previous results. Violation of Bell’s inequality was observed under a total simulated loss of 103 dB with measurement settings chosen by two experimenters. This demonstrates the feasibility of such long-distance Bell test over extremely high-loss channels, paving the way for one of the ultimate tests of the foundations of quantum mechanics.

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  • Received 28 November 2017
  • Revised 12 February 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.140405

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Quantum Information, Science & TechnologyGeneral Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Yuan Cao1,2, Yu-Huai Li1,2, Wen-Jie Zou2, Zheng-Ping Li1,2, Qi Shen1,2, Sheng-Kai Liao1,2, Ji-Gang Ren1,2, Juan Yin1,2, Yu-Ao Chen1,2, Cheng-Zhi Peng1,2, and Jian-Wei Pan1,2

  • 1National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
  • 2CAS Center for Excellence and Synergetic Innovation Center in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai 201315, China

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Issue

Vol. 120, Iss. 14 — 6 April 2018

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