Action at Distance:
Quantum Mechanics Disentangled ..:)
If my theory were aimed at reading God's mind, I would also try to find out what is in God's Sleeves...:)
As you might know by now, I don't consider reading God's mind to foster Wisdom a good idea . My theory has been based on what was useful and profound in about all the contributions the great minds of Science... I paid close attention to what they implicitly assumed in their theories, many times without realizing.....:)
Let's wrap up the Action at Distance Puzzle. This has been the source of many outrageously speculative explanations, including infinite speed of information transfer, backwards time traveling, etc. It also spanned a new field, Quantum Encryption. Please read the blog and let me know what you think.
The Paradox derives from a polarization experiment: A excited molecule decays and emits two photons w1 and w2 with correlated polarizations and a tightly defined k-vectors. The k-vectors are defined by the setup of the experiment itself and linear momentum conservation.
The polarizations of the two outgoing photons are connected through the molecular frame of reference angle between transition dipole moments.
The experiment probe how information about what happens in one arm is reaching the other arm by what seems to be Magic and/or hyperluminal speed communication and/or time travel.
Experimental Details: On each of two arms, far from this light source, there are two polarizers and two detectors. The distance makes a strong selection on the k-vector cone. The fact that a detector have to absorb the incoming photon with high quantum yield, makes the detector itself a source of "vacuum noise" at the emission wavelenghts.
The puzzle is that according to Quantum Mechanics, the outgoing photons don't have a defined polarization until they meet the polarizers. This is certainly true from experiments slicing a light beam, such that subsequent polarizers have 45 degrees angle with the prior ones.
Since the two polarizers are far away from each other and the polarizers are placed at equal distance from the light source, a paradox is created: How is it possible for the information about the polarization of photon1 to reach photon2 in time for redefining its polarization? Remember that one is considering that the photons have ill defined polarization until they reach the polarizers.
Using a correlated photon counter and changing one polarizer orientation, one can confirm that the two photons emitted at any given time, keep correlated polarization even thought there isn't enough time for any luminal/subluminal speed signal to reach the other photon.
To solve this puzzle I had to resort to the basic understanding of light emission and absorption. The simple paradigm of a "Kid on a Swing" is the place to start. Bra's and Ket's are great for formalism but they hide the Physics, which always goes back to the "Kid on a Swing". This is my preferred analogy for emission/absorption.
Scientist oftentimes forget or never learn that for emission or absorption to occur, a dephasing process has to take place. This means that the swing has to be slightly out of phase from the "Excitation" for energy transfer to occur. If you push the swing in perfect synchrony there will be no energy transfer.
Our traveling photons might not know what they will have to become to pass that polarizer and hit the detector, but the emiting atom has perfect line of sight to the detectors through the polarizers.
Let's make a Gedanken Experiment. Imagine that the excited state molecule has two eyeballs. Since there is a polarizer between the excited molecule and the detector, the "vacuum" field along that very small spherical angle (k-vector cone) will be dominated by the polarized emission of the detector surface. Notice that I placed "vacuum" in parenthesis since there is something to learn about it from this experiment. I will come back to this point at the end of this blog. Since the excited state molecule will be dephased by radiation coming from the detector, the outgoing photon will have a pretty well defined polarization. This is the same problem one have in a laser. The excited state medium knows what is the polarization permitted within the lasing cavity. There is a degree of intensity on the "vacuum field". Within a laser cavity, the vacuum is not thought to be a vacuum but to the be the field within a Hi-Q resonant cavity. If one considers the high selectivity of the experiment performed, the result will be the same. The two polarizers and detectors act as a Hi-Q laser cavity. The distance between the two arms select the k-vector of the "vacuum". This experiment is done under low excitation since one wants to measure correlation between pairs of photons. A larger number of photons arriving at the same time would be just equally distributed among the two detectors of each arm.
This means that the detector itself (plus polarizer) and the geometry of the apparatus defines the polarization of the emission and thus eliminating any source of paradox. This means that the pre-selection of photon polarization occurs at the time of the emission. By the time the photon arrived at the polarizer its polarization was already compliant with a given polarization. As we know, if we send linearly polarized light along a properly aligned polarizer 100% of the light will pass through. This means that polarization is preserved and only changes if the polarizers are not aligned with the incoming beam.
This is an effect of the observer on what is being observed prior/during to the "observed event - photon emission". Eveything else is history by the time the photon departs from the source.
This is an example of estimulated deexcitation, in a regime of low photonic density. The noise with with the coherence couples doesn't come from some "vacuum" but directly from the detector itself.
My reference to vacuum states is that all emissions are stimulated deexcitation, but the source is not a function of space, as in field theory but a function of the surroundings.
This also means that zero point vacuum states for photons may not be a property of space.
This would explain why any calculation of the zero point vacuum energy for the whole Universe blows up by a factor of 10^56 or thereabouts... Field theory is being developed considering vacuum a property of space... The huge factor should be taken as a hint...:)
Any theory based upon stationary states of vacuum would have to be based upon the assumption of perfectly reflective boundary conditions at the end of the Universe and that is hardly a physical assumption.
The photon that eventually passes through the polarizer and reaches the detector doesn't know a priori what is the orientation of the polarizer. The excited state molecule, on the other hand, knows perfectly everything about the polarizers and detectors at the time of emission and thus there is no need for information to travel back in time or from one arm to the other arm of the experiment... :)
The polarization of detected photon is defined with information from the detector/polarizer when the photon is emited.
My next blog is titled: He ain't fat... He is my Brother..>:) and I intend to make it understandable by the weekend...:)
I hope you missed my blog...:) I was on vacation in Paris... Beautiful city...:)
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