Quantum entanglement helped to improve the geolocation

Researchers from the University of Arizona demonstrated that the combination radiovolnah sensing and quantum Metrology may enable you to create radar with unprecedented precision. About their development, the researchers reported in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Traditional radars convert the information from radio frequency signals in electrical toku. However, optical sensing, which uses photons — the quanta of light to transmit information much more efficiently. Moreover, photons allow to obtain more data than electrons, which gives a large signal bandwidth, sensing-based Photonics can transmit this signal to a much larger distance than the sensing based on electronics, with less interference. Since optical signals have so many benefits, the creators of the work decided to use electro-optic Converter for converting radio waves in the optical region using a method radiovolnah sensing.

After converting the geolocation data in the optical range the researchers used a method called quantum Metrology. Typically, the accuracy of the sensor is limited by standard quantum limit. For example, a GPS system of a smartphone is usually accurate at the scale of 5 meters. Quantum Metrology uses entangled particles to overcome the standard quantum limit and to conduct sensitive measurements.

How does it work? Entangled particles are connected to each other, so whatever happens to one particle affects entangled with her while carried out the relevant measurements. Imagine Manager and employee working together on the project. Because the employee takes time to share information with your supervisor through such methods as email and meetings, the effectiveness of their partnerships is limited. But if these two could combine their brains officer and the chief instantly exchanged information and were able to work more efficiently.

Almost all of the previous examples of quantum Metrology, including the LIGO interferometer, was used only one sensor. The creators of the work first demonstrated that a network of three sensors it is possible to confuse with each other. They receive information from the probes and process them at the same time maintaining communication with each other.

Although the experiment used only three sensors, the method can be applied to networks of hundreds of sensors. “Imagine, for example, a network for biological sensing: you can confuse the biosensors so that they worked together and identified biological molecules or detect neural activity rather classical technology, says one of the researchers, associate Professor in the Department of materials science and engineering and of optical Sciences University of Arizona Gesen Zhang. — This method can be applied to any application that requires array or network of sensors”.