One of the most fundamental features of quantum physics is Bell nonlocality:
the fact that the predictions of quantum mechanics cannot be explained by
any local (classical) theory. This has remarkable conceptual consequences
and far-reaching applications in quantum information.
However, in our everyday experience, macroscopic objects seem to behave
according to the rules of classical physics, and the correlations we see are
local. Is this really the case, or can we challenge this view? In a recent
paper in Physical Review Letters, scientists from the University of Vienna
and the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the
Austrian Academy of Sciences have shown that it is possible to fully
preserve the mathematical structure of quantum theory in the macroscopic
limit. This could lead to observations of quantum nonlocality at the
macroscopic scale.
Our everyday experience tells us that macroscopic systems obey classical
physics. It is therefore natural to expect that quantum mechanics must
reproduce classical mechanics in the macroscopic limit. This is known as the
correspondence principle, as established by Bohr in 1920. A simple argument
to explain this transition from quantum mechanics to classical mechanics is
the coarse-graining mechanism: if measurements performed on macroscopic
systems have limited resolution and cannot resolve individual microscopic
particles, then the results behave classically.
Such an argument, applied to (nonlocal) Bell correlations, leads to the
principle of macroscopic locality. Similarly, temporal quantum correlations
reduce to classical correlations (macroscopic realism) and quantum
contextuality reduces to macroscopic non-contextuality. It was strongly
believed that the quantum-to-classical transition is universal, although a
general proof was missing. To illustrate the point, let us take the example
of quantum nonlocality.
Suppose we have two distant observers, Alice and Bob, who want to measure
the strength of the correlation between their local systems. We can imagine
a typical situation where Alice measures her tiny quantum particle and Bob
does the same with his and they combine their observational results to
calculate the corresponding correlation. Since their results are inherently
random (as is always the case in quantum experiments), they must repeat the
experiment a large number of times to find the mean of the correlations. The
key assumption in this context is that each run of the experiment must be
repeated under exactly the same conditions and independently of other runs,
which is known as the IID (independent and identically distributed)
assumption.
For example, when performing random coin tosses, we need to ensure that each
toss is fair and unbiased, resulting in a measured probability of
(approximately) 50% for heads/tails after many repetitions. Such an
assumption plays a central role in the existing evidence for the reduction
to classicallity in the macroscopic limit. However, macroscopic experiments
consider clusters of quantum particles that are packed together and measured
together with a limited resolution (coarse-graining). These particles
interact with each other, so it is not natural to assume that correlations
at the microscopic level are distributed in units of independent and
identical pairs. If so, what happens if we drop the IID assumption? Do we
still achieve reduction to classical physics in the limit of large numbers
of particles?
In their recent work, Miguel Gallego (University of Vienna) and Borivoje
Dakić (University of Vienna and IQOQI) have shown that, surprisingly,
quantum correlations survive in the macroscopic limit if correlations are
not IID distributed at the level of microscopic constituents.
"The IID assumption is not natural when dealing with a large number of
microscopic systems. Small quantum particles interact strongly and quantum
correlations and entanglement are distributed everywhere. Given such a
scenario, we revised existing calculations and were able to find complete
quantum behavior at the macroscopic scale. This is completely against the
correspondence principle, and the transition to classicality does not take
place", says Borivoje Dakić.
By considering fluctuation observables (deviations from expectation values)
and a certain class of entangled many-body states (non-IID states), the
authors show that the entire mathematical structure of quantum theory (e.g.,
Born's rule and the superposition principle) is preserved in the limit. This
property, which they call macroscopic quantum behavior, directly allows them
to show that Bell nonlocality is visible in the macroscopic limit. "It is
amazing to have quantum rules at the macroscopic scale. We just have to
measure fluctuations, deviations from expected values, and we will see
quantum phenomena in macroscopic systems. I believe this opens the door to
new experiments and applications," says Miguel Gallego.
Reference:
Miguel Gallego et al, Macroscopically Nonlocal Quantum Correlations,
Physical Review Letters (2021).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.120401
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Physics