Time travel, widely recognized as a staple of science fiction stories and movies, is at least theoretically possible under certain conditions. These include situations such as traveling at extremely high speeds through space, as well as the proximity of a traveler to particularly strong sources of gravity.
However, new research suggests that scientists may be closer to extending time manipulation beyond theory and into practical use, thanks to new innovations in quantum physics.
Einstein’s theory of relativity helped to show the intimate connection between time and space, revealing that as a traveler’s speed through space increases, their experience of time slows down. This reality has been verified experimentally in experiments involving observed variances in individual clocks that reveal what physicists call time dilation.
Technically, as we walk down the street on any day of the week, our feet move in time at a slightly different rate than our head, given our lower body’s closer proximity to the Earth’s gravitational field. However, such changes are so subtle as to be imperceptible, and features of space and time such as these are of little practical importance.
However, recent research by a team at Washington University in St. -travel detectors. The big discovery, detailed in a new study published on June 27, 2024, presents a bold possibility: scientists may soon be able to collect data from the past.
The strange realm of quantum metrology
In their paper, the team describes experiments involving a two-qubit superconducting quantum processor. Their measurements showed a quantum advantage that exceeded any strategy that did not involve quantum entanglement phenomena. The results of their study could potentially enable the collection of data from the past by exploiting the unique properties of what Einstein called “tremorous action at a distance.”
While impossible in our everyday world, the realm of quantum physics offers possibilities that defy conventional rules. At the heart of this advance is a property of entangled quantum sensors referred to as “backsight”.
Kater Murch, Charles M. Hohenberg Professor of Physics and Director of the Center for Quantum Leaps at the University of Washington, compares the team’s investigations into these concepts to sending a telescope back in time and allowing it to capture images of a star that it falls
From Qubits to Singlets
In their research, the team devised a process where two quantum particles were entangled into a single quantum state, consisting of a pair of qubits whose opposite spins are always oriented in opposite directions, regardless of their frame of reference. reference. One of the qubits, which the researchers designate a “probe,” is then placed in a magnetic field, which induces spin.
Meanwhile, the qubit that is not exposed to the magnetic field is measured. This reveals a key aspect of the team’s innovation, given that the entanglement properties shared between the two qubits allow the quantum state of the helper qubit to influence the probe qubit under the influence of a magnetic field. The remarkable result is that the probe qubit is affected retroactively, which effectively facilitates the ability to send information “back in time.”
This means that scientists are technically able to use this backward phenomenon to determine the optimal direction for the probe qubit’s spin after the fact, almost as if they were looking into the future but controlling the qubit’s behavior in the past. This allows them to increase the accuracy of measurements.
Time-traveling quantum sensors in real life?
Under most circumstances, measuring the spin spin of a qubit as a means of measuring the magnitude of a magnetic field would have about a one in three chance of failure since the alignment of the field with the direction of the spin effectively nullifies the results. In contrast, the backward property allowed the team the unique ability to retroactively determine the best direction for rotation.
Under these conditions, the entangled particles effectively function as a single entity that exists simultaneously in both forward and backward positions in time, thus allowing innovative potential in the creation of advanced quantum sensors that can produce temporally manipulated measurements.
The implications of such a technology are significant and could help fuel all sorts of new sensor technologies, from detecting rare astronomical phenomena to vastly improving the way researchers study and manipulate the behavior of magnetic fields.
Ultimately, the team’s new “time travel” technology is likely to mark an important step toward bringing this well-known sci-fi concept to reality, allowing for innovative new possibilities and insights into the nature that extend beyond our present grasp of time.
Published under the innocuous title “Agnostic Phase Assessment,” the groundbreaking new study by Murch and co-authors Xingrui Song, Flavio Salvati, Chandrashekhar Gaikwad, Nicole Yunger Halpern, and David RM Arvidsson-Shukur appeared in Physical review papers.
Micah Hanks is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Debrief. He can be contacted by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and in X: @MicahHanks.