Through a Ring of Fire: Information Preservation across Horizons
Abstract
The goal of this proposal was to investigate the relationship between quantum information and the structure of spacetime. Information is always encoded by preparing a physical system in a given state, and it is processed by changing its state upon interaction with other systems. The simplest idealization of this is a 2-level system (a simple atom known as an Unruh DeWitt detector; henceforth called a qubit for simplicity) that has a ground and excited state it is the basic component of information storage in a quantum computer, and can be regarded as an idealized detector. The qubit is sensitive to the presence of quantum fields analogous to the way an atom is sensitive to the presence of photons (light). Under the right circumstances, 2 qubits interacting with the field can become entangled with each other. Entanglement is a particular kind of extra correlation present only in quantum physics and known to exponentially increase processing power. In recent years it has become clear that spacetime itself has the capacity to both entangle non-interacting qubits and to destroy the information that they carry. The extraction (or swapping) of quantum entanglement from the spacetime vacuum itself into a pair of qubits is called entanglement harvesting.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 27, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1194243
Entities
People
- Robert Mann
Organizations
- University of Waterloo