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The quantum Cheshire cat


Can neutrons be located at a different place than their own spin? A quantum experiment, carried out by a team of researchers from the Vienna University of Technology, demonstrates a new kind of quantum paradox

The Cheshire Cat featured in Lewis Caroll's novel "Alice in Wonderland" is a remarkable creature: it disappears, leaving its grin behind. Can an object be separated from its properties? It is possible in the quantum world. In an experiment, neutrons travel along a different path than one of their properties – their magnetic moment. This "Quantum Cheshire Cat" could be used to make high precision measurements less sensitive to external perturbations.

The basic idea of the Quantum Cheshire Cat: In an interferometer, an object is separated from one if its properties -- like a cat, moving on a different path than its own grin.

Credit: TU Vienna / Leon Filter

Tobias Denkmayr is shown working on the experiment in Grenoble.

Credit: TU Vienna

At Different Places at Once

According to the law of quantum physics, particles can be in different physical states at the same time. If, for example, a beam of neutrons is divided into two beams using a silicon crystal, it can be shown that the individual neutrons do not have to decide which of the two possible paths they choose. Instead, they can travel along both paths at the same time in a quantum superposition.

"This experimental technique is called neutron interferometry", says Professor Yuji Hasegawa from the Vienna University of Technology. "It was invented here at our institute in the 1970s, and it has turned out to be the perfect tool to investigate fundamental quantum mechanics."

To see if the same technique could separate the properties of a particle from the particle itself, Yuji Hasegawa brought together a team including Tobis Denkmayr, Hermann Geppert and Stephan Sponar, together with Alexandre Matzkin from CNRS in France, Professor Jeff Tollaksen from Chapman University in California and Hartmut Lemmel from the Institut Laue-Langevin to develop a brand new quantum experiment.

The experiment was done at the neutron source at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, where a unique kind of measuring station is operated by the Viennese team, supported by Hartmut Lemmel from ILL.

Where is the Cat …?

Neutrons are not electrically charged, but they carry a magnetic moment. They have a magnetic direction, the neutron spin, which can be influenced by external magnetic fields.

First, a neutron beam is split into two parts in a neutron interferometer. Then the spins of the two beams are shifted into different directions: The upper neutron beam has a spin parallel to the neutrons' trajectory, the spin of the lower beam points into the opposite direction. After the two beams have been recombined, only those neutrons are chosen, which have a spin parallel to their direction of motion. All the others are just ignored. "This is called postselection", says Hermann Geppert. "The beam contains neutrons of both spin directions, but we only analyse part of the neutrons."


… and Where is the Grin?


"By preparing the neurons in a special initial state and then postselecting another state, we can achieve a situation in which both the possible paths in the interferometer are important for the experiment, but in very different ways", says Tobias Denkmayr. "Along one of the paths, the particles themselves couple to our measurement device, but only the other path is sensitive to magnetic spin coupling. The system behaves as if the particles were spatially separated from their properties."

High Hopes for High-Precision Measurements

This counter intuitive effect is very interesting for high precision measurements, which are very often based on the principle of quantum interference. "When the quantum system has a property you want to measure and another property which makes the system prone to perturbations, the two can be separated using a Quantum Cheshire Cat, and possibly the perturbation can be minimized", says Stephan Sponar.

The idea of the Quantum Cheshire Cat was first discovered by Prof. Yakir Aharonov and first published by Aharonov's collaborator, Prof. Jeff Tollaksen (both now from Chapman University), in 2001. The measurements which have now been presented are the first experimental proof of this phenomenon. The experimental results have been published in the journal "Nature Communications".


Further Information:

Prof. Yuji Hasegawa
Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics,
TU Wien
Stadionallee 2, 1020 Vienna
T: +43-1-58801-141490

Florian Aigner | Eurek Alert!
Further information:

Further reports about: Cheshire ILL Quantum Technology effect measurements neutrons particles perturbations properties

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