If a photon brings too little energy, it does not fit inside a proton (left). A photon with adequately high energy is so small that it flies into the interior of a proton, where it sees part of the proton (right).
Pieces of the interior of a proton have been revealed by researchers from Mexico and Poland to exhibit maximum quantum entanglement. The discovery, already faced with speculative information, enables us to suppose that in some aspects the physics of the inside of a proton may have much in common not only with popular thermodynamic phenomena, however even with the physics of … great voids.
Different fragments of the within of a proton need to be maximally entangled with each other, otherwise theoretical forecasts would not concur with the information gathered in experiments, it was displayed in European Physical Journal C. The theoretical model (which extends the original proposition by physicists Dimitri Kharzeev and Eugene Levin) makes it possible to suppose that, contrary to current belief, the physics operating inside protons may be connected to such ideas as entropy or temperature, which in turn might relate it to such exotic objects as black holes. The authors of the discovery are Dr. Martin Hentschinski from the Universidad de las Americas Puebla in Mexico and Dr. Krzysztof Kutak from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow, Poland.
When an inbound electron bring a negative electric charge approaches a favorably charged proton, it engages with it electromagnetically and deflects its path. Electromagnetic interaction suggests that a photon has been exchanged in between the electron and the proton.
A photon with sufficiently high energy is so small that it flies into the interior of a proton, where it sees part of the proton (right). If the observation by the photon of the interior part of the proton leads to its decay into a number of particles, lets state 3, then the number of particles originating from the unseen part of the proton is determined by the number of particles seen in the observed part of the proton,” explains Dr. Kutak.
If entanglement inside the proton were not maximal, there would be discrepancies in between theoretical estimations and the outcomes of the H1 experiment at the HERA accelerator at the DESY center in Hamburg, where positrons (i.e. antiparticles of the electrons) were clashed with protons till 2007. It has just recently been revealed that in the case of the proton, we can effectively talk about entanglement entropy. The consistency of the Mexican-Polish model with experiment is a strong argument for the fact that the idea of entanglement inside the proton as proposed by Kharzeev and Levin has a point.
The result of connecting with this sort of photon can be the decay of the proton into particles. If the observation by the photon of the interior part of the proton leads to its decay into a number of particles, lets say 3, then the number of particles stemming from the unseen part of the proton is determined by the number of particles seen in the observed part of the proton,” discusses Dr. Kutak.
We can mention quantum entanglement of different quantum objects, if certain characteristics of the things are related to each other in a particular way. The classical example of the phenomenon can be represented by the toss of a coin. Lets presume that one object is one side of the coin, and the other things is its opposite. When we flip a coin, there is the exact same possibility that the coin will land heads or tails dealing with up. We know for sure that the other side is tails if it lands heads up. We can then speak of maximum entanglement because the probability which determines the value of an objects attribute does not prefer any possible worth: we have a 50% chance of heads and the exact same for tails. When the possibility begins to prefer one of the possible outcomes to a greater or lower extent, a smaller sized than maximum entanglement occurs.
” Our study shows that the interior of a proton seen by a passing photon should be knotted with the unseen part in just this maximal manner, as suggested by Kharzeev and Levin. In practice, this means that we have no chance of forecasting whether, due to interaction with the photon, the proton will decay into three, four, or any other number of particles,” describes Dr. Hentschinski.
The new theoretical forecasts have actually currently been validated. If entanglement inside the proton were not maximal, there would be discrepancies between theoretical calculations and the results of the H1 experiment at the HERA accelerator at the DESY center in Hamburg, where positrons (i.e. antiparticles of the electrons) were clashed with protons till 2007. Such inconsistencies were not observed.
The success of the Polish-Mexican tandem is because of the fact that the researchers managed to properly recognize the factors accountable for the optimum entanglement of the proton interior.
In the naive schoolbook view, the proton is a system of three primary particles: 2 up quarks and one down quark. All this indicates that inside the proton, apart from three valence quarks, there are continuously boiling seas of virtual gluons and virtual quarks and antiquarks.
” In earlier publications, physicists handling the subject assumed that the source of entanglement ought to be a sea of gluons. Later, efforts were made to show that quarks and antiquarks are the dominant source of entanglement, but even here the proposed techniques of description did not stand the test of time. According to our model, verified by conflict with experimental information, the sea of virtual gluons is responsible for about 80% of the entanglement, while the sea of virtual quarks and antiquarks is responsible for the remaining 20%,” highlights Dr. Kutak.
Most recently, quantum physicists have been associating entropy with the state inside a proton. This is a quantity well understood from classical thermodynamics, where it is utilized to determine the degree of disordered movement of particles in an evaluated system. It is assumed that when a system is disordered, it has high entropy, whereas an ordered system has low entropy. It has actually recently been shown that in the case of the proton, we can successfully talk about entanglement entropy. However, lots of physicists have thought about the proton to be a pure quantum state in which one should not mention entropy at all. The consistency of the Mexican-Polish model with experiment is a strong argument for the fact that the idea of entanglement inside the proton as proposed by Kharzeev and Levin has a point. Last however not least, since entanglement entropy is also related to ideas such as the area of black holes, the current result opens an interesting field for further research study.
Reference: “Evidence for the maximally entangled low x proton in Deep Inelastic Scattering from H1 information” by Martin Hentschinski and Krzysztof Kutak, 4 February 2022, The European Physical Journal C.DOI: 10.1140/ epjc/s10052 -022 -10056- y.