Researchers have confirmed that quantum entanglement persists between top quarks, the heaviest known fundamental particles.
Physicists have demonstrated quantum entanglement in top quarks and their antimatter partners, a discovery made at a video for CMS social media channels to explain her group’s result. She used the analogy of an indecisive king of a distant land, whom she called “King Top.”
King Top gets word that his country is being invaded, so he sends messengers to tell all the people of his land to prepare to defend. But then, Demina explains in the video, he changes his mind and sends messengers to order the people to stand down.
“He keeps flip flopping like this, and nobody knows what his decision will be at the next moment,” Demina says.
Nobody, Demina goes on to explain, except the leader of one village in this kingdom who is known as “Anti-Top.”
“They know each other’s state of mind at any moment in time,” Demina says.
Demina’s research group consists of herself and graduate student Alan Herrera and postdoctoral fellow Otto Hindrichs.
As a graduate student, Demina was on the team that discovered the top quark in 1995. Later, as a faculty member at Rochester, Demina co-led a team of scientists from across the US that built a tracking device that played a key role in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson—an elementary particle that helps explains the origin of mass in the universe.
Rochester researchers have a long history at CERN as part of the CMS Collaboration, which brings together physicists from around the globe. Recently, another Rochester team achieved a significant milestone in measuring the electroweak mixing angle, a crucial component of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which explains how the building blocks of matter interact.