Alain Aspect
Institut d’optique
Bat 503, Centre universitaire, F91403 ORSAY France
Starting in the 1970’s, another concept has progressively become more and
more important in quantum physics: the description of single objects, in contrast to
the statistical use of quantum mechanics to describe only properties of large
ensembles (for instance the fluorescence of an atomic vapour). That question had, like
the EPR problem, been an object of debate between Bohr and Einstein3, but it is the
development of experimental abilities to isolate and observe single microscopic
objects like electrons, ions, and atoms that prompted physicists to take quantum
mechanical dynamics of single objects, including “quantum jumps”, seriously. The
experimental observation of quantum jumps (in the fluorescence light from a single
ion) inspired new theoretical approaches, the so called “Quantum Monte Carlo Wave
Function” simulations, primarily used to describe “elementary” microscopic objects
like ions, atoms, and small molecules. More recently, progress in nanofabrication, as
well as experimental breakthroughs, have allowed physicists to create mesoscopic
systems (e.g. electric and magnetic devices, gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates)
which push the border of the quantum world to larger and larger systems that still
need to be described as single quantum objects.
I would like to argue, as a witness of that period, that John Bell also played,
indirectly, an important role in the emergence of the new theoretical approaches
clarifying the quantum description of individual objects. Before the realization of the
importance of Bell’s theorem, which happened only in the 1970’s, the conventional
wisdom among physicists was that the “founding fathers” of quantum mechanics had
settled all conceptual questions. Bell’s work on entanglement did not cast any doubt
on the validity of quantum mechanics as a predictive tool. To the contrary
experiments found that nature definitely follows the quantum mechanical predictions
even in those weird situations. But there was a lesson to be drawn: questioning the
“orthodox” views, including the famous “Copenhagen interpretation”, might lead to
an improved understanding of the quantum mechanics formalism, even though that
formalism remained impeccably accurate. It is my claim that Bell’s example helped
physicists to free themselves from the belief that the conceptual understanding that
had been achieved by the 1940’s was the end of the story.
a
An example of usual correlations is the identity of the eye colors of twin brothers,
linked to their identical chromosome sets. Correlations in entangled twin photons are
different in nature, as we explain later.
Even if the public is not always aware, the applications of quantum physics
are all around us in electronics and photonics. In technologies today, quantum
mechanics is required to understand material properties (electrical, mechanical,
Niels Bohr was apparently bowled over by this argument, which rests on
quantum mechanics itself to show its provisionary character. His writings show his
profound conviction that if the EPR reasoning were correct, it would not be just a
matter of completing the formalism of quantum mechanics, but it would be all of
quantum physics that would collapse. He thus immediately contested the EPR
reasoning14, claiming that in such a quantum state one could not speak about the
individual properties of each particle, even if they are far from one another. In
contrast to Bohr, Schrödinger reacted positively to the EPR paper, and coined the
term “entanglement,” to characterize the lack of factorability of an EPR state15.
In fact, when the EPR paper appeared in 1935, quantum mechanics was being
crowned with one success after another, so apart from Bohr and Schrödinger, most
physicists ignored this debate, which seemed rather academic. It seemed that adhering
to one or the other position was a matter of personal taste (or epistemological
position), but did not have any practical consequence on how quantum mechanics was
used. Einstein himself apparently didn’t contest this attitude, and we had to wait thirty
years to see a resounding counter-argument to this relatively universal position.
Bell’s Theorem
In 1964, a now famous short article2 changed the situation dramatically. In this
paper, John Bell takes seriously the EPR argument, and introduces common
supplementary parameters (also called “hidden variables”16) shared by the two
particles at their initial preparation in an entangled state, and carried along by each
particle after separation. Reasoning on entangled states of two spin-1/2 particles – a
simpler version of the EPR situation introduced by Bohm17, Bell shows that one can
easily explain the existence of correlations between the results of measurements on
the two particles by writing that the result of a measurement on one particle depends
only on the parameters carried by that particle and by the setting of the apparatus
making that measurement. But then, a few lines of calculation suffice to show a
b
A famous example is « Bertlmann’s socks » (paper ??16 of this volume). Physicists are surprised as
much as non physicists, may be more : see D. Mermin, « Is the moon there? », Physics Today 38, 11
(1985).
c
The importance of a locality hypothesis had already been suggested in Bell’s discussion of the
“impossibility proofs” of hidden variables16, and the locality assumption was clearly stated in the first
paper presenting inequalities2. Actually, the locality (or separability) question appears in most of the
papers of this volume.
The inseparability of an entangled photon state has been shown to hold even if
the photons are far apart – including a “space-like” separation in the relativistic sense,
that is a separation such that no signal traveling at a velocity less than or equal to the
velocity of light can connect the two measurements. This was already the case in the
1982 experiments, where the photons were separated by twelve meters at the time of
the measurements21. In addition, it was possible to change the setting of the measuring
polarizers during the twenty nanosecond flight of the photons between the source and
the detector22, in order to implement Bell’s ideal scheme. In more recent experiments,
where new sources have permitted the injection of entangled photons into two optical
fibers, a violation of Bell Inequalities was observed at separations of hundreds of
meters24, and even more25, and it has even been possible to change randomly the
setting of the polarizers during the propagation of the photons in the fibers24. “Timing
experiments” with variable polarizers emphasize that everything happens as if the two
entangled photons were still in contact, and as if the measurement of one photon
would affect the other instantaneously. This seems to contradict the principle of
relativistic causality that specifies that no interaction can propagate faster than the
speed of light.
It should be stressed, however, that there is no violation of causality in the
operational sense, and that one cannot use this non-separability to send a signal or a
usable information faster than the speed of light26. To illustrate this impossibility, one
can note that in order to exploit the EPR correlations for sending information, it
would be necessary to transmit a kind of “decoding grid”, which can be done only via
a classical channel, which does not communicate at super-luminal speed27. Thus, as
troubling as it may be, quantum entanglement does not allow us to build the super-
luminal telegraph at work in science-fiction novels. Nevertheless, as we will describe
in section 5, fascinating applications of entanglement are developing in a new field:
“quantum information”.
d
Actually, there remains a loophole open for advocates of local hidden variable theories, when the
efficiency of the detectors used in real experiments is small compared to unity, so that many photons
remain undetected20. However, as stressed by John Bell [in paper ?? : Atomic-cascade photons and
quantum-mechanical nonlocality, Comments on atomic and Molecular Physics 9 (1980) 121-126] “it is
difficult for me to believe that quantum mechanics, working very well for currently practical set-ups,
will nevertheless fail badly with improvements in counter efficiency…”. A first experiment with
detection efficiency close to one [M. A. Rowe et al., Nature 409 (2001) 791-794: Experimental
violation of a Bell’s Inequality with efficient detection] has confirmed a clear violation of Bell’s
inequalities. In that experiment however, the measurements were not space like separated. An
experiment in which the detection efficiency is large and the locality condition is enforced by use of
variable measuring apparatus, is still to be done.
Even if these mesoscopic objects are for the moment curiosities in research
labs, the uninterrupted miniaturization of microelectronics may soon oblige engineers
to understand their circuits using the laws of quantum mechanics. In section 5, we
will give the example of a would-be “quantum computer”, but even ordinary
transistors will exhibit new quantum properties if downscaled to the size of a few
thousands of atoms
Quantum cryptography
Cryptography is the science of encoding and/or transmitting a secret message
without its being read/understood by a third party. Much of classical cryptography
involves secure transmission on a public channel. As the field has progressed,
Quantum computing43,44
e
It may make a « significant » difference: see for instance the example in ref 43, where the
factorisation time of a 400 digits number can be reduced from the universe age to a few years.
The papers collected in this wonderful volume are a witness of John Bell’s
intellectual freedom, depth of thought, and also of his wonderful sense of humor that
made each of his talk such a unique experience. I would not dare to comment about
these papers, since John Bell’s preface to the first edition50 is an illuminating reading
guide. Many papers are of course devoted to the EPR problem (i.e. entanglement),
[Bell] inequalities (never named so) and their significance, with deep discussions on
the locality condition, and its relation to relativity and Einstein’s world views. Forty
years after Bell’s work, the importance of entanglement is clear to all physicists, but it
is still difficult to “swallow”, and reading Bell’s papers remains the best way to
penetrate the difficulties of that question. The other deep concern of John Bell was the
frontier that the Copenhagen interpretation establishes between the quantum world
and the measuring apparatus described in classical terms. This division was
unacceptable to him, and a strong motivation to consider alternative, non standard
descriptions of the world (including Bohm’s hidden variable theories and de Broglie’s
pilot wave model). In addressing that question, he of course considered the
Schrödinger’s cat problem, the measurement problem, and the quantum jumps
question. More than half of the papers of this volume address that issue. Many of the
fundamental questions about the measurement problem, including the role of
decoherence, are not yet settled, and reading these papers is a source of stimulation
and inspiration for contemporary research.
Alain Aspect
1
M. Jammer, “The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics”, Wiley, page 303 (1974): this book is too early
to render full justice to Bell’s contribution, but it is a very valuable source of historical details and
references for the first quantum revolution.
2
J. S. Bell, “On the Einstein-Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Paradox”, Physics 1,195-200 (1964).
3
See chapter 10 in ref.1.
4
M. Planck, XX, Verkandl. Deut. Phys. Ges., Dec 14 (1900).
5
A. Einstein, Uber einen die Erzeugung und Verwandlung des Lichtes bettrefenden heuristischen
Gesichtpunkt, Ann. Physik, 17, 132 (1905); Zur Theorie der Lichterzeugung und Lichtabsorption, Ann.
Physik, 20, 199 (1906).
6
R. A. Millikan, « A direct determination of ``h.'' », Phys. Rev., 4, 73 (1914); A Direct Photoelectric
Determination of Planck's "h", 7, 362 (1916).
7
A. Einstein, Zur Theorie des Brownschen Bewegung, Ann. Physik, 19, 371 (1906)
8
L. de Broglie, Recherches sur la théorie des quanta, Thèse de doctorat, Paris (1924), Annales de
Physique, 10è série, vol. III, 22-128 (1925).
9
W. E. Lamb and R. C. Retherford, “Fine structure of the hydrogen atom by a microwave method”,
Phys. Rev. 72, 241 (1947).
10
J. Bardeen and W. H. Brattain, “The Transistor, A Semi-Conductor Triode”, Phys. Rev. 74, 230-231
(1948).
11
J. S. Kilby, “Turning Potential into Reality: The Invention of the Integrated Circuit”. Z. I. Alferov,
“The double heterostructure concept and its applications in physics, electronics and technology”.
Herbert Kroemer, “Quasi-Electric Fields and Band Offsets: Teaching Electrons New Tricks”: Nobel
Lectures (2000), Physics 1996-2000 (World Scientific), also available at
http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/2000/.
12
Charles H. Townes, “Production of coherent radiation by atoms and molecules”. Nicolay G. Basov,
“Semiconductor lasers”, A. M. Prokhorov, “Quantum electronics”, (1964), in Nobel Lectures, Physics
1963-1970 (Elsevier), also available at http://www.nobel.se/physics/
13
A. Einstein, B. Podolsky and N. Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechanical description of physical reality
be considered complete ?”, Phys. Review 47, 777 (1935).
14
N. Bohr, “Can Quantum-Mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?”, Phys.
Review 48, 696 (1935).
15
E. Schrödinger, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 31, 555-63 (1935)
f
I would like to warmly thank Joseph Thywissen and W.D. Phillips for stimulating discussions about
this foreword, and for their efforts to improve my English.
P. Zoller and C. W. Gardiner, « Quantum noise in quantum optics : the stochastic Schrödinger
equation », Lecture notes for Les Houches Summer School LXIII (1995), edit. by E. Giacobino and S.
Reynaud, Elsevier 1997, and references therein.
34
F. Bardou, J.-P. Bouchaud, A. Aspect, and C. Cohen-Tannoudji, « Lévy statistics and laser cooling :
when rare events bring atoms to rest », Cambridge University Press (2002)
35
L. P. Lévy, G. Dolan, J. Dunsmuir, and H Bouchiat, « Magnetization of mesoscopic copper rings:
evidence for persistent currents », Physical-Review-Letters 64, 2074 (1990).
36
E. A. Cornell and C. E. Wieman, “Bose-Einstein condensation in a dilute gas, the first 70 years and
some recent experiments », Reviews-of-Modern-Physics 74, 875 (2002).
W. Ketterle, “Nobel lecture: when atoms behave as waves: Bose-Einstein condensation and the atom
laser », Reviews-of-Modern-Physics 74, 1131 (2002).
37
D. G. Fried, T. C. Killian, L. Willmann, D. Landhuis, S. C. Moss, D. Kleppner,and T. J. Greytak,
Physical-Review-Letters 81, 3811 (1998), « Bose-Einstein condensation of atomic hydrogen »
38
See Bell’s preface to the first edition, page ?? of this volume. More than half of the papers of this
volume address that question.
39
E. Schrödinger, Naturwissenshaften. 23, 807, 823, 844 (1935).
40
J.-M. Raimond, M. Brune, S. Haroche, “Manipulating quantum entanglement with atoms and
photons in a cavity”, Reviews-of-Modern-Physics. 73, 565 (2001).
41
T. Pfau, S. Spalter, C. Kurtsiefer, C. R. Ekstrom, J. Mlynek, « Loss of spatial coherence by a single
spontaneous emission », Physical-Review-Letters 73, 1223 (1994).