{"id":16270,"date":"2025-04-13T10:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T10:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/16270\/"},"modified":"2025-04-13T10:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T10:36:08","slug":"quantum-level-perspective-of-subatomic-particle-sprays-are-revealing-new-quantum-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/16270\/","title":{"rendered":"“Quantum-Level Perspective” of Subatomic Particle Sprays Are Revealing New Quantum Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

When studying the quantum phenomena<\/a> of the world\u2019s smallest particles<\/a>, sometimes scientists have to break a few things.<\/p>\n

This includes protons<\/a> that, when colliding at nearly the speed of light inside the world\u2019s largest particle accelerator<\/a>, result in a dazzling spray of particles known as a jet<\/a>. These jets might seem chaotic to the untrained eye, but according to a new study by physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory<\/a> and Stony Brook University,<\/a> they carry a surprising level of order rooted in one of quantum physics\u2019 most mysterious phenomena: quantum entanglement.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis study, for the first time, establishes a direct connection between the \u2018entanglement entropy\u2019 at the earliest stage of jet formation and the particles that emerge as a jet evolves,\u201d Charles Joseph Naim, research associate at Stony Brook University\u2019s Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science said in a recent statement.<\/p>\n

Published in Physical Review Letters<\/a> and highlighted as an Editor\u2019s Suggestion, the research takes a fresh look at data from proton-proton collisions at CERN\u2019s Large Hadron Collider<\/a> (LHC). In these high-energy smashups, quarks and gluons\u2014the building blocks of protons\u2014get knocked loose and fragment into new particles that fan out as a jet. But here\u2019s the twist: how those particles fan out may not be random at all.<\/p>\n

Quantum Clues in the Chaos<\/strong><\/p>\n

The team wanted to know whether the distribution of the jet\u2019s final particles could reveal something about their quantum origins.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to see if the distribution of the hadrons in the jet was influenced by the level of entanglement among the quarks and gluons at the time the jet first formed,\u201d explained Abhay Deshpande, a distinguished professor at Stony Brook and interim associate lab director at Brookhaven.<\/p>\n

Their findings<\/a> suggest the answer is yes.<\/p>\n

The concept of entanglement entropy\u2014a way of measuring how deeply quantum particles are interlinked\u2014proved key. Prior research<\/a> by co-authors Zhoudunming Tu and Dmitri Kharzeev found that higher entanglement among quarks and gluons<\/a> inside protons led to more disorder in the final particle spray.<\/p>\n

The new study takes this further, connecting that same quantum \u201cmessiness\u201d to jets\u2019 fragmentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new study offers a novel quantum-level perspective on the fragmentation process,\u201d said Kharzeev.<\/p>\n

A Window into the Quantum World<\/strong><\/p>\n

The researchers observed<\/a> that jets with higher entanglement in their origins produced a wider variety of hadrons<\/a>\u2014mainly pions, kaons, and protons\u2014in line with predictions from maximal entanglement models.<\/p>\n

This result<\/a> helps confirm that the quantum relationships between particles don\u2019t vanish when collisions end\u2014they echo into the final results captured by particle detectors.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis study paves the way for further exploration of how quantum entanglement influences hadron formation,\u201d said study co-author Jaydeep Datta. \u201cWe\u2019re only beginning to understand how deep these connections go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking Ahead with the EIC<\/strong><\/p>\n

The work has exciting implications for the future, especially at the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC)<\/a>\u2014a next-generation research facility now under construction at Brookhaven Lab.<\/p>\n

Designed to precisely probe the inner structure of protons and nuclei, the EIC will give physicists the tools to test how far quantum entanglement extends within the building blocks of matter. It will compare jets from different types of collisions, helping researchers understand how entanglement behaves in more complex environments.<\/p>\n

With support from the U.S. Department of Energy<\/a> and Stony Brook\u2019s Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science, the study not only provides a new window into quantum mechanics but also showcases how some of the universe\u2019s messiest events might actually follow remarkably subtle and elegant rules.<\/p>\n

Kenna Hughes-Castleberry is a freelance science journalist and staff writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with her on BlueSky<\/a> or contact her via email at kenna@thedebrief.org<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When studying the quantum phenomena of the world\u2019s smallest particles, sometimes scientists have to break a few things.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[11024,11025,74,11026,3591,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-16270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-hadrons","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-protons","12":"tag-quantum","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114330218170868192","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}