Photon quantum entanglement in the MeV regime and its application in PET imaging

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of quantum entanglement of photon pairs in the MeV energy range to improve PET imaging, validated by experiments and simulations, and proposes new methods for background correction.

Contribution

It introduces a novel simulation including quantum entanglement effects in MeV photons and demonstrates experimental constraints on entanglement loss in PET.

Findings

Validated simulation matches experimental data from CZT PET.

First experimental constraint on entanglement loss in MeV photons.

Proposed method to improve background correction using entanglement information.

Abstract

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a widely-used imaging modality for medical research and clinical diagnosis. Here we demonstrate, through detailed experiments and simulations, an exploration of the benefits of exploiting the quantum entanglement of linear polarisation between the two positron annihilation photons utilised in PET. A new simulation, which includes the predicted influence of quantum entanglement on the interaction of MeV-scale photons with matter, is validated by comparison with experimental data from a cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) PET demonstrator apparatus. In addition, a modified setup enabled the first experimental constraint on entanglement loss for photons in the MeV regime. Quantum-entangled PET offers new methodologies to address key challenges in next generation imaging. As an indication of the potential benefits, we present a simple method to quantify and remove in-patient scatter and random backgrounds using only the quantum entanglement information in the PET events.