String theory was originally developed to describe the fundamental particles
and forces that make up our universe. New research, led by a team from Imperial
College London and to be published in Physical
Review Letters, describes the unexpected discovery that string theory also
seems to predict the behavior of entangled quantum particles. As this
prediction can be tested in the laboratory, researchers can now test string
theory.
Over the last 25 years, string theory has become physicists’ favorite
contender for the “theory of everything”, reconciling what we know about the
incredibly small from particle physics with our understanding of the very large
from our studies of cosmology. Using the theory to predict how entangled
quantum particles behave provides the first opportunity to test string theory
by experiment.
“If experiments prove that our predictions about quantum entanglement are
correct, this will demonstrate that string theory ‘works’ to predict the
behavior of entangled quantum systems,” said Professor Mike Duff FRS, lead
author of the study from the Department of Theoretical Physics at Imperial
College London.
“This will not be proof that string theory is the right “theory of
everything” that is being sought by cosmologists and particle physicists.
However, it will be very important to theoreticians because it will demonstrate
whether or not string theory works, even if its application is in an unexpected
and unrelated area of physics,” added Professor Duff.
Professor Duff recalled sitting in a conference in Tasmania where a colleague was presenting
the mathematical formulae that describe quantum entanglement: “I suddenly recognized
his formulae as similar to some I had developed a few years earlier while using
string theory to describe black holes. When I returned to the UK I checked my notebooks and
confirmed that the math from these very different areas was indeed identical.”
The discovery that string theory seems to make predictions about quantum
entanglement is completely unexpected, but because quantum entanglement can be
measured in the lab, it does mean that at last researchers can test predictions
based on string theory. There is no obvious connection to explain why a theory
that is being developed to describe the fundamental workings of our universe is
useful for predicting the behavior of entangled quantum systems. “This may be
telling us something very deep about the world we live in, or it may be no more
than a quirky coincidence”, concluded Professor Duff. “Either way, it’s
useful."
The study was carried out by researchers from Imperial College London and Stanford University. It was partly funded by the
UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
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