The magic of entangled top quarks

TL;DR

This paper explores the presence of quantum magic in top anti-top pairs produced at the LHC, revealing that nature tends to produce states with computational advantages, linking quantum information concepts with particle physics.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of quantum magic into high energy physics, demonstrating that top quark pairs can exhibit states with genuine quantum computational advantage.

Findings

Top anti-top pairs often produce states with quantum magic.

Averaging over final states increases the amount of magic.

Magic states contrast with entanglement measures like concurrence.

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increasing body of work examining how quantum entanglement can be measured at high energy particle physics experiments, thereby complementing traditional table-top experiments. This raises the question of whether more concepts from quantum computation can be examined at colliders, and we here consider the property of magic, which distinguishes those quantum states which have a genuine computational advantage over classical states. We examine top anti-top pair production at the LHC, showing that nature chooses to produce magic tops, where the amount of magic varies with the kinematics of the final state. We compare results for individual partonic channels and at proton-level, showing that averaging over final states typically increases magic. This is in contrast to entanglement measures, such as the concurrence, which typically decrease. Our results create new links between the quantum information and particle physics literatures, providing practical insights for further study.