ERN’s ATLAS experiment has observed the quantum entanglement of top quarks, the most massive fundamental particles, at the highest energy ever, 12 orders of magnitudes (one trillion times) higher than typical entanglement measurements.
We are not aware of the property known as quantum entanglement at our level of reality. It is well within the purview of the universe’s tiniest participants. Particles that are entangled can no longer be considered as independent entities, but rather as components of a single state. Therefore, even if something occurs on the opposite side of the universe, it will still instantly affect the other. Einstein was deeply troubled by this and referred to it as “spooky action at a distance,” but it isn’t a violation of special relativity or the finite speed of light.
Though not at the energy achieved at CERN, it’s actually a very valuable property that supports quantum communications and computers in the future, so it’s not eerie. The ATLAS experiment has been examining entangled pairs of top quarks that are produced in particle collisions, utilizing data gathered from 2015 to 2018.
Top quarks are highly unusual. These are fundamental particles, the building blocks of all atoms in the universe, akin to a heavier cousin of the up quark found inside protons and neutrons. They weigh the same as a molecule of caffeine because they are that hefty. But the top quark wouldn’t kick you in. It breaks down too soon and is unstable. After 5×10−25 seconds, it vanishes.
That’s a very short period. That gap is equivalent to one second, just as one second is equivalent to 100 million times the universe’s age. Because of its short decay period, which prevents it from breaking down into quark-based particles known as hadrons, physicists can indirectly verify several characteristics of the standard particle model, including the mass of the Higgs boson.
The decay products, or the particles formed after the top-quark couples come into existence, are the subject of all those tests. With an accuracy beyond the gold standard of particle physics, the researchers measured a degree of entanglement that could not be explained if the quarks were not coupled.
