Controlling Photon Entanglement with Mechanical Rotation

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how mechanical rotation influences photon entanglement, showing a transition from bosonic to fermionic behavior in entangled photons, which has implications for quantum communication in curved spacetime.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup combining Sagnac and Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometers to observe spacetime effects on quantum entanglement.

Findings

HOM interference dips turn into peaks with increased rotation

Photon indistinguishability is affected by non-inertial motion

Spacetime influences quantum entanglement behavior

Abstract

Understanding quantum mechanics within curved spacetime is a key stepping stone towards understanding the nature of spacetime itself. Whilst various theoretical models have been developed, it is significantly more challenging to carry out actual experiments that probe quantum mechanics in curved spacetime. By adding Sagnac interferometers into the arms of a Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometer that is placed on a mechanically rotating platform, we show that non-inertial motion modifies the symmetry of an entangled biphoton state. As the platform rotation speed is increased, we observe that HOM interference dips transform into HOM interference peaks. This indicates that the photons pass from perfectly indistinguishable (bosonic behaviour), to perfectly distinguishable (fermionic behavior), therefore demonstrating a mechanism for how spacetime can affect quantum systems. The work is increasingly relevant in the real world as we move towards global satellite quantum communications, and paves the way for further fundamental research that could test the influence of non-inertial motion (and equivalently curved spacetime) on quantum entanglement.