Researchers from Harvey Mudd are part of a group of scientists who recently completed experiments on entangled photons that produced results consistent with quantum mechanics.<\/p>\n
Assistant Professor of Physics Jason Gallicchio, who devised an idea to use starlight to improve tests of quantum mechanics, and Calvin Leung \u201917 are co-authors, along with their colleagues, on the paper \u201cA Cosmic Bell Test with Measurement Settings from Astronomical Sources<\/a>,\u201d published Feb. 7 by Physical Review Letters<\/em>.<\/p>\n Gallicchio studies experimental cosmology, the study of the origin and evolution of the universe. The paper aims to close a loophole in tests of physicist John Bell\u2019s inequalities\u2014which confirm the \u201cspooky action at a distance\u201d between quantum entangled particles\u2014by using telescopes that look at widely separated stars to generate the random settings in experiments on quantum entanglement. \u201cThis particular project is interesting and different,\u201d Gallicchio explains, \u201cbecause it combines astrophysics and quantum mechanics; things on big, distant scales and things that we tend to think of as being on tiny scales. We\u2019re using light that\u2019s coming from far, far away as a tool to do tests of quantum mechanics.\u201d<\/p>\n Gallicchio\u2019s idea to use starlight as a tool to generate random measurements came to him when he was an undergrad, taking one class in the philosophy of physics and another in quantum mechanics. He developed his idea further, writing the first draft of the paper during a year spent at the South Pole studying the cosmic microwave background. He returned to the U.S. and later flew to Vienna, Austria, to work on convincing his colleagues there, including leading physicists and cosmologists, to perform the experiments, which generated exciting results. \u201cWith starlight, it\u2019s harder to say there\u2019s something happening that can be explained locally,\u201d Gallicchio says. \u201cIf you hope that there\u2019s some locality-friendly thing happening under quantum mechanics, it\u2019s much less plausible now.\u201d<\/p>\n