Scientists announced that the Cheshire cat quantum effect may not be real

A team of scientists in 2013 a quantum Cheshire cat effect quantum phenomenonIt is inspired by the homonymous cat in British author Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Researchers found that when the cat disappeared, leaving only traces of its smile, that quantum particles can distinguish themselves from their properties — in other words, properties can travel along paths that the particle cannot travel. But it seems things are not quite like that.

In addition to separating properties, the quantum Cheshire cat effect can also separate multiple properties simultaneously and even separate the wave-particle duality of a particle. But a recent study published in the scientific journal New Journal of Physics suggests that experiments naming this effect in 2013 did not reveal ambitious results.

The researchers explain that particles do not separate themselves from their properties, but actually present a property of quantum mechanics: contextuality. They explain that there is no quantum Cheshire cat effect and that experiments give different results when different measurements are taken.

“Most people know that quantum mechanics is weird, but determining what causes this weirdness is still an active area of ​​research. This was gradually formalized by a concept called contextuality. quantum systems change depending on the measurements you make on them” said Jonte Hance, researcher and one of the study’s authors, from Hiroshima University (Japan) and the University of Bristol (UK).

Cheshire cat quantum effect? NO.

In an official statement, scientists explained that the order of measurements in a quantum system can produce different results depending on the order in which the measurement is performed.

This effect is exactly what they call contextuality, because the way the experiment is observed will affect the outcome of the data. They explain this Measurements performed in 2013 were necessary to achieve the quantum Cheshire cat effect, but they were not accurate.

Since the quantum Cheshire cat effect is paradoxical and has been ‘debunked’, the team plans to investigate other effects thought to be paradoxical to understand whether they are part of the contextuality of quantum physics. Based on data and future researchScientists try to explain why measurements vary in different quantum systems.

“We want to correct this by showing that different results are obtained if a quantum system is measured in different ways, and that the original quantum Cheshire cat interpretation only occurs when you combine the results of these different measurements in a very specific way and ignore this respective change measurement,” said another professor, Holger Hofmann, of Hiroshima University. .

Stay up to date with the latest work on quantum physics at TecMundo. Or take advantage of understanding how quantum computing manages to reduce chemical reactions by up to 100 billion times.